The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-03-31

year old negro porter in the build ing. He confessed. insisting the mo- tive was theft. He was convicted and will be electrocuted at Sing Sing.
 High School Girl Next
 Mary Ellen Babcock, 18-year-old Buffslo, N. r., high school girl started home clone from a wake the night of Feb. 5. The next day her body, with nearly a dozen stab wounds on the face, neck, chest ana legs, was found in vacant lot in South Buffalo. Officers sought a "sex maniac" for more than two months. Yesterday Thomas Smith, 18, confessed. He blamed the crime on uncomfortable impulse" He had been arrested for stabbing a A. year-old girl with an ice pick.
 Helen Major Dies
 On Feb. 10 Alexander Meyer, stocky farm youth on parole from the reforatory, to which he had been sentenced for an assault on two Philadelphia girls, got in his truck and went out to Hook for a girl" On the highway near Modena, Pa. he saw Helen Mover, 16, on the way home from the Coatesville high school. He ran her down with the truck, placed her unconscious form in the cab and driving through two populous communities, went to an abandoned farm where he ravished the body and disposed of 1t in a 50- foot well, which he then dynamited Because of his record officers questioned him and he confessed. Meyer pleaded guilty and will be sentenced April 5.
 Four Year Old Victim
 The next was the Tobacco Road" murder of four-year-old Joan Nor van who died at her Jamacia home in New York City March l of peri tonitis following criminal as- sault Feb. 28. Howard Magnussen of Huntington Station, Long Island, 26, described by police as looking IF and having mind of B." con- fessed. Joan was the daughter of George Morvan. 9, with whom one of Towards sisters, Norma Cato, a divorcee, was living. Three of the killers other sisters, all under IS, told of numerous criminal attacks by their brother. Howard awaits trial.
 Last Before Gedeons
 The last of the crimes before the Gedeons' slayings was the attack murder of Finer Sporrer, the pretty 9-year-old daughter of Bavarian immigrants, by Salvatore OSsido, Italian immigrant barber who is married and the father of two small children. Ossido, whose trail was set for April 12, was free under $1,000 bail on charges of impairillg the morals of 12-year-old girl when he attacked Finer on March 20, killed her with a hammer and left her body in a burlap bag on doorstep two blocks from her home. He confessed that he lured the girl into the room behind his shop on the pretext of employing her to clean it. He had previously served an 18 months sentence for assault on a minor has paid a $1O fine for annoying a girl in the subway.
 Judges, Legislators Aroused
 The Sporrer murder aroused the wrath of judges and legislators alike. In Brooklyn county Judge George W. Martin urged laws and institu- tions for segregation and, Eff neces- sary," sterilization of sex offenders. He asserted that because of the weakness of the law there were "50 to 100 men of this type loose in Brooklyn now" At Albany State Senator John J, McNaboe asked a legislative injliry to determine whether existing laws were strong enough to check the increase in sex crimes and Assemblyman William c. McCreery proposed compulsory psy- chiatrical examination of persons accused of sex offenses. Both meas ures are M committee.
 In Pennsylvania the Mover mur- der resulted in the introduction in the state senate of a resolution for senatorial investigation into the state parole system to discover what steps should be taken, before grant, ing parole, to determine "the mental condition of prisoners charged with sex crimes"
 Brooklyn magistrates in the past week have sentenced three men ac- cused of sex offences to the longest terms possible under the law. rang ing up to 10 years. Judge Martin felt they were not long enough, however. They serve their terms and come out to go right back to att tacking children" he said.