A Book of Remarkable CriminalsIrving, H. B. (Henry Brodribb)
History
A Book of Remarkable Criminals
Irving, H. B. (Henry Brodribb)
Criminals -- Biography
(8) Case of Porcher and Hardouin cited in Despine. "Psychologie
Naturelle."
In a town in Austria there dwelt a happy and contented married couple,
poor and hard-working. A charming young lady, a rich relation and an
orphan, comes to live with them. She brings to their modest home wealth
and comfort. But as time goes on, it is likely that the young lady will
fall in love and marry. What then? Her hosts will have to return
to their original poverty. The idea of how to secure to himself the
advantages of his young kinswoman's fortune takes possession of the
husband's mind. He revolves all manner of means, and gradually murder
presents itself as the only way. The horrid suggestion fixes itself
in his mind, and at last he communicates it to his wife. At first she
resists, then yields to the temptation. The plan is ingenious. The wife
is to disappear to America and be given out as dead. The husband will
then marry his attractive kinswoman, persuade her to make a will in his
favour, poison her and, the fortune secured, rejoin his wife. As if
to help this cruel plan, the young lady has developed a sentimental
affection for her relative. The wife goes to America, the husband
marries the young lady. He commences to poison her, but, in the presence
of her youth, beauty and affection for him, relents, hesitates to commit
a possibly unnecessary crime. He decides to forget and ignore utterly
his wife who is waiting patiently in America. A year passes. The
expectant wife gets no sign of her husband's existence. She comes back
to Europe, visits under a false name the town in which her faithless
husband and his bride are living, discovers the truth and divulges the
intended crime to the authorities. A sentence of penal servitude for
life rewards this perfidious criminal.(9)
(9) Case of the Scheffer couple at Linz, cited by Sighele.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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