Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1891-10-31 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

SHOCKING CRIME IN PARIS.  Coosiderable mystery attaches to a murder which has been committed at Neuilly. The victim was a man named Charles 011ivier,nearly 70 years of age, who had been in service in different houses in the neighbourhood, and of late had done some business as a money-lender in a quiet way. 011ivier—whe was a widower—lived by himself in a room at No. 107, Avenue de Neuilly, which is inhabited by workmen and their families, and "Le Pere Charles," as he was called, was regarded generally as being very well off for an individual in his position. As a matter of fact, says the Daily Telegraph Paris correspondent,he was believed popularly to have increased his capital substantially by his money-lending transactions, and at length he had become so well known that quite "genteel people were seen to alight at the door of the house in which he dwelt, and to climb up the steep staircase leading to his solitary quarters. Thus it was that the appearance of two smart young men, who drew up in a cab before the house the other afternoon, and after spending an hour and a half in the room occupied by 011ivier, drove off in the same vehicle, which they had kept waiting the while, attracted no attention. It was not until 8 o'clock had struck that the concierge—surprised at not seeing 011ivier come down—noticed the fact, and told her husband. Soon afterwards the woman sent him upstairs to ascertain what had happened. He had scarcely reached the door of the room inhabited by the money-lender when a female lodger who lived on the same floor emerged from her chamber with the remark that in the earlier part of the afternoon she had heard the sound of a heavy fall, followed by groans, and would have hastened to communicate her suspicions to the concierge had she not feared that she might be assaulted in her turn. This news confirmed completely the apprehensions already entertained. The police were summoned to the spot, and the door having been opened by a locksmith, the body of 011ivier was found buried beneath a heap of mattresses and boxes. Round the neck of the victim was a stout rope, with which the aims and legs of "Le Pere Charles" were also bound tightly, and it was evident that death had resulted from strangulation. When the unfortunate man had breathed his last his murderers had dragged the corpse to a corner of the room, and had covered it with everything on which they could lay their hands. Cupboards and drawers had been ransacked, and all the money which 011ivier had about him had been abstracted with the exception of a banknote, which was found in an old pocket-book. His watch, too, had disappeared, but plate and other articles of value left in pledge by persons who had borrowed of the old man bad not been touched. The police officials, after a minute examination of the premises, took away with them a trunk filled with papers in the hope that they might throw some light on the affair. M. Goron, the in ad of the Criminal Department, is conducting the investigation, and no stone is being left unturned in the attempt to discover the murderers. The authorities, however, are by no means sanguine as to the result of their inquiries. All their efforts to obtain something approaching to an accurate description of 011ivier 's visitors have proved abortive, and the affair is complicated by the belief that they are no ordinary criminals, but young men engaged in business. Unlike hardened malefactors they had no weapons about them, and It is noteworthy that they were utter strangers to the neighbourhood, this being the first occasion on which-they had beer. known to call on "Le Pere Charles."