The Sun. — 1847-04-19 (London, England)

TRANGE CASE OF MURDER IN  SPAIN.  The Court of Assizes of Saragossa was occupied a short time since with the trial of Pedro Cal dessa, the proprietor of a small inn near Sos, in Navarre, Paula Murillo, his wile, and Carmen Cardessa, their daughter, for the murder of a man named Gregorio Orensauz, re• siding in the valley of A eso, two leagues distant from the residence of the prisoners. It appeared from the evideuce that the deceased had left home on the 22d of September to collect money due to him by various pereons. Some days having passed over without his re• turning, his family became uneasy, and inquiries were iesti,usad. N..thint• ..,rther was discovved than that he day he left home. The male prisoner and his daughter asserted that they knew nothing about the proceedings of the deceased, but the mother allowed that he had called at the house, but after a short stay had taken his departure. Nothing coming to light to criminate them, they were merely subjected to several Iwo months without being taken into custody. months after a human leg was discovered in the little river 9neella, close to the prisoner's residence, and search being instituted, the remaining parts of the body were found except the head, which had been apparently cut off with some heavy instrument like a cleaver. The limbs were all dreadfully hacked and mutilated ; some of the articles of clothing were recognised as having belonged to the deceased. Still nothing had been discovered to fix the crime on any party in particular, when Paula Murillo being taken ill, amd considering herself on the point of death, sent for the authorities and made a confession to the followin effect:—" The deceased had called at her house on September 22, and bad demanded some money due to him for wheat. Not having it, she desired him to wait until her husband returned. She prepared breakfast for him at which he drank copiously, and at last wanted to take liberties with her. On his laying hands on her, she pushed him so violently away that he staggered back and fell wish his head against the corner of a chest of drawers. She, being dreadfully alarmed, went to raise him up and help him, when she found that he was dead, without having shed a drop of blood. Being afraid of the consequences of such an accident, she determined to conceal the body, and wrapping it up in a coarse cloth, she carried it down to the cellar, and hid it under a quantity of faggots. She lett it there for several weeks, when the heap of faggots be'dnning to run low, she got afraid of her husband discovcrine the whole matter, and taking a cleaver she cut the body into pieces, and placing the limbs in two baskets carefully covered over, she herself took one, and her daughter the other, to the bank of the river. She then sent the young woman on an errand to the neighbouring village, and during her absence emptied the baskets into the water. The daughter was quite ignorant of what the baskets contained; in the hurry of filling the baskets she had forgotten the head in the cellar; she mutilated the features to prevent recognition, and then buried it in a piece of waste gr.und." This confession, bi coming known, excited the greatest commotion, and the woman soon after getting better, she, her husband and the daughter were arrested. The authorities having caused a very minute search to be made in the house where the prisoners had lived, found a number of French sf. pieces concealed, and those the daughter admitted she had seen with her mother. It was proved that precisely the same number of sf. pieces had been paid on the morning of the murder to the deceased by another party. The mother, on the other hand, denied that she knew anything about the money in question. After a trial of great length, the Court acquitted the father and daughter, but not believing that the deceased had met with his death accidentally, found the mother guilty of murder. The Court at once sentenced her to death, and ordered the execution to take place in front of the Town-hall of Sos. This sentence was carried nto;executicn on the 21st ult.