The North-Eastern Weekly Gazette. — 1888-08-18 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

THE MYSTERIOUS MURDER IN MADRID.  EXTRAORDINARY PRISON  "iifELkl-&§.  The secret ot the mysterious crime which five weeks ago threw Madrid into such a state of excitement seems to have been discovered, and it implicates the prison authorities of that city to the gravest extent. It will be remembered that after midnight on July Ist smoke was noticed issuing from a house in the Guile de Fuencarral. where the neighbours had heard unusual noises. The house was entered, and in the front room was di.. covered the body o a wealthy widow, about 55 years of age, who had been stabled to death. The RFS/188111S had also tried to burn the body by heaping c'othes on the lower limbs and ponritte petroleum over them. The fire had charted and disfigured the lower part of the body, but had died out, leaving intact the chest and neck, which bore the inarke of stabs. Nothing in the room had been disturbed, and none of the valuables taken away. In another loom the search party found a female servant and a bull dog, and the servant declared her ignorance and innocence of the crime. She was apprehended, and for a whole fortnight nearly drove the Judge and the police distracted with her varying confeisions.and at one time saying she alone had killed her mistress. and then saying the deed had been committed by some men. Then she accused the deceased's son Varela, who was in prison at the time, of having done the deed, affirming that the latter Was let out of prison on the fatal night, as he had frequently been before. 'When asked why she did not state this at first she said she had been induced to make her first statements by the governor of the prison, who wished to conceal his veuiality. The governor was now arrested, and when confronted with his accuser he flew at her throat and tried to throttle her. After five days investigation he was set at liberty, but suspended from his function. At length an inferior official turned informer, and then it was discovered that, like other prisoners, Jose: Varela went in and out of his Majesty's prison by day and night, in disguise or in plain clothes, by the ordinary door or by a side passage through the political department. He had been out all the afternoou and night of July 1, and had returned to prison at 4 am. on July 2 in a state of semidutoxication, though he had been allowed to hare as a companion one of the prison officials. It was also learnt from the official who male this confession that Varela. on returning to the prison half intoxicated, had to!d one fellow-prisoner, who was sweeping his cell that his in ,ther was badly hurt and not likely to live long. To another person in the prison on the same night he had distinctly declared that Ile had been mad enough to kill his mother. The judge at once ordered Varela and the other prisoners arrested on suspicion of being his accomplices, to be transferred to cells of close confinement, and he issued warrants for the apprehension of seven warders and officials on duty on July 1 arid 2. Last but not least he issued a warrant for the arrest of the ex-governor. As he thought he could not Ernst him to the care of his old subordinates, he obtained the permission of the Captain-General of Madrid to seud him to the military prison in the old Convent of Ban Francisco.