The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1841-02-23 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

EXTRAORDINARY CASE.—A. trial for murder, attended with circumstances of extraordinary atrocity, has just taken place before the Court of Assizes at Brest. The facts, as proved in evidence, are as follow —A man named Castel, an armourer, resided at Brest with his wife, who appears to have behaved virtuously and properly up to the year 1826, at which time her husband embarked as master on board a ship of war. On his return, after the battle of Navarino, at which he was present, he found that his wife had been leading a dissolute life, and she was no longer worthy of his affection ; but he forgave her, and hoped to find in her repentance some return of the happiness which he had formerly enjoyed. The wife, however, far from replying to the kindness of her husband by good conduct, formed a connection with a married man, named Bescond, who resided in a village adjoining Brest, and by a long series of cruel treatment, in which she was aided by Bescond, drove her husband mad, and he was sent to a lunatic asylum. On his return home, cured of his malady, the brutality of the wife and her paramour, who, as an excuse for his frequent visits, had placed his daughter as a boarder in the house of Castel, was increased, and it was at length resolved, in the winter of 1839, to deprive the unfortunate husband of life. For this purpose the wife pretended that some money had been left to her husband at Havre, and a passport was obtained for them to go to that place. They quitted home in the evening, in company with Bescond and his daughter, a girl of 21 years of age, and of Augustine Castel, the daughter of the married couple, aged 16. It was arranged with Castel that he and his wife should take leave of these three persons at the house of Bescond, whose wife was absent. When Castel arrived there, some warm wine was given to him, into which Bescond, with the knowledge of the wife and Augustine Castel, had put a large dose of laudanum ; and when the poison had produced its effect, Castel, probably still living, was carried at night into a field belonging to Bescond, where the murderers, aided by the daughter of Bescond, who does not, however, appear to have been present at the murder, dug a grave, into which they threw the body, and Bescond having cast over it two sacks of quick lime, in the hope of removing all trace of the deed, the grave was filled up. After the murder, Bescond and the guilty widow led a life of great dissipation, frequented the theatres and masked balls, and appeared totally insensible to remorse. To persons who inquired for Castel, they replied that he had embarked at Havre for the colonies. The murder came to light in the following way :—The wife of Bescond, having remonstrated with her husband and his mistress on their adulterous intercourse, it was resolved by them to murder her also. The plan laid by these wretches was overheard by the daughter of Bescond, who ran to her mother and told her to be on her guard, or she would be served as Castel had been, and then she related all the circumstances of the murder in the presence of a female friend of her mother. This female recommended that the crime should be denounced to the Procureur du Roi; but to this neither the mother nor the daughter would consent, as they wished to spare the life of the husband and father. The female in question, however, took an opportunity to send an anonymous letter to the Procureur du Roi, which led to the arrest of all the parties, including the girl Bescond, and to the discovery of the body, which was found entire, although in an advanced stage of decomposition, having been buried more than six months, In the grave was found a copy of the criminal code, which had belonged:to Bescond, and the leaves of which were turned down at the part relating to the proceedings in cases of murder. Sixty witnesses were examined, and not the slightest doubt existed on the minds of the jury as to the guilt of all the parties, except the daughter of Bescond, who was acquitted. Bescond and the widow Castel were sentenced to death, and the daughter, Augustine Castel, was condemned to impisonment in a house of correction for 10 years, at the expiration of which she is to be placed for 10 years under the surveillance of the police.