Show V 'V T - T T v THE SALT IiAKE TRIBUNE SUNDAY MORNING JUNE F 1935 aATT P A lerLetna Ivnirej ashed tlieoZ-iea-r La 3 T‘ piiA or trime esslsle m A Peaceful Guernsey n Standi at 'thc Murder of Old Farmer Brouard by Horror-Stricke- JZL : 1 the Pretty Young f Housekeeper Who f Coveted His Y IT r It jr- s f- o -r I'l s 1 U m u tf'l T-J- V ll '"ss WITH THIS WEAPONS of the Actual Breed-Knif- e With Which Impressive Cloe-U- p Old Farmer Brouard Wa Dona to Death The British Crown Fomtd Mr da la Mare Brouard’e Houiekeeper and Sweetheart Guilty of the Deed Photo Specially Posed for Thin e Newspaper by Girl THE JURATS PONDERED HER FATE The High Court of the Itloud of Cuornioy ia Soloum Ssssioa t the Trial of Pretty Sava0 Mrs Gertrude de la Mare 26 (at Left) fOr the Murder of Her Aged Employer Note the Quaint Ancient Statues and the General Atmosphere of Rapt Attentiveness ea the Part of Bailiff (Judge) and Jury upon to become active in the proceedings His opinions worO unfavorable to — — the prisoner It was shown that h spot on a purple robe belonging to Gertrude probably was human blood Then came a fantastic and gruesome courtroom episode First the waxen model of a human head was introduced in evidence with Brouard's lethal wound clearly indicated This was to show that suicide was out of the question Next the actual bed on which the body had been found was brought in and a policeman lying upon it counterfeited the posture of tne corpse This was to prove that because of the peaceful attitude of tho limbs Brouard’s lif had been taken Tho defense plea was that if Mrs de la Mare was culpable she had done the deed while insene and therefore could Dot be executed Assuming the French legal bonnet the BaililT summed up By a 6 to 6 majority the jurats convicted Guernsey's first murderess Tho woman’s long patient and vituha had 60 pounds in perative struggle with the Attorney-Gener- al the bank and that his was ended Almost stoically she farm with cattle and listened to the death sentence effects was worth at Through centuries they called Gucrn- least 2000 pounds On “The Crimcless Isle" But now— aey is a Guernsey this slssable fortune Court-Attach- THROUGH hoary centuries they a have called Guernsey "The Crime Jest Isle" and justly For this second largest of the Chan- A nel Islands off the French coast rivals even tranquil Scandinavia in its law -abiding qualities Nigh felony is virtually unknown There is no divorce And a locked frontdoor is an egregious rarity to infrequent it theft Every physical factor in Guernsey favors placidity and fence fn shape triangular and rising from its base of loam and f ravel to a plateau of granitic rock the island is blessed with a beneficent climate Soothing winds tufBe (he encircling sea into soft motion The steep-side- d Valleys beat ample fruitage In the rectangular bays ioats the Huffy emerald seaweed er"Vrnic" to the Guernseyites the emblem of good luck Reverence for the ancient Celtic saints is traditional Acute poverty is absent Farms and hamlets bristle with activity And for eighty-tw- o yean— astounding record I —no perion in Guerniey hai been convicted of murder rvv rX -- f V— 4 if ’ UT now the ageless calm of Guernsey has been harshly snapped slashed through by the lethal knife of a woman killer While the Islanders stood horror-struc- k at her crime a galltws went up grimly in the market place If they had hanged pretty Mrs Gertrude Elizabeth de la Mare from that gibbet they would have bran executing the first murderess in Guernsey’s history Local law proclaims Hhat the death sentence must be fulfilled in public But Gertrude after all will not swing There was pervasive general sentiment against hanging her and King George V hereditary Duke of Normandy has intervened He commuted the death penalty to life imprisonment It was by and large the bread knife that condemned her The knife—and the forged will Had it not been for that commo-plastainless steel implement worth at most a couple of shillings" Gertrude might today be walking the streets of ‘St Peter Port the capital free and unblemished Her trial the most sensational since that of Edith Thompson for slaying her husband Percy abounded in f failed to grato on her sensibilities Tho veil of mystery that for most children hangs over sex she pierced before she was in her 'teens And she had what the French so precisely term “a grievous heredity" Gertrude’ maternal grandfather— a de la'Touche from Brittany— was a fervent religionist who BsedbiaialseJalthJo cloak ASvrpassing-- y passion for strong drink and weak ce -- v— women INSIDE PLACID WALLS bava turned Gertrude over to the police charging forgery anq theft- - On the other hand ehe had so enslaved him that his hands were virtually tied Ob- - could viously some I Tho Humble Farmhouse a) Lo'Comp Joinet Where Brouard Wee Sleiu This Formed Part of the Farmer’s Considerable Property Which Under the Terms of the Forged Will “Gertie of the Reck" Hoped to Inherit fee might change bis mind in a mood pjque drove her thoughts in a definite I ! de- cision by one of the two principals had to be reached This decision was not long in arriving The situation was complicated by further factors: (1) Old Brouard desperate with - jcalousyfelLinto the habit of threat- ening suicide He developed the obnoxious custom of picking up the very bresdknife- with which later hewas — slaughtered and brandishing it before the eyes of Gertrude's small daughter shouting “What do you think this is for dear! To slit a throat with?" The child naturally would run v creaming to her mother (2) Gertrude would threaten her master with the fact that unless he continued to provide for her she would be forced to seek the “protection” of other more attractive men Now the people of Guernsey though g and lenient began to sense impending tragedy in the Brouard household The women snubbed Gertie openly the men observed a our taciturnity Even girls and boys shrank away from ber It was intoler- FTi -- direction ToTorgery— and worse This old reprobate died In deep dis- No stranger to deeds of violence to VICTIM grace but not before tho aubtle influ- 'gushing blood she pondered she wonhad ences Bronard his of Alfred' hypocritical profligacy Then probably came tho dered 76 Oaca Missrlyi distorted his adolescent granddaughter’s fabrication of the nogua will leaving Than n Prodigal viewpoint on life to Gertrude all Brouard possessed Spendthrift Un-dGertie’s father on the other hand was ‘Gertrude inaugurated her actively tho Fatal Sometimes this felonious career sternly puritanical by forging Brouard’s e Spall of The broached adtual cruelty name to a number of checks She also Convicted severity relamale of these effect conglomerate in the of A J Sherwill of Crown Startling disclosures of Killiog Him tives on the girl’s life— one a snivelling eounselphrase Crown charged that “abused his money” in other — f'he of the Rock"-Hers and Catherine tho libertine the other a sadistic moralist was appalling The tree hhd been ways as she had come to be Yet so mesmeric was the emotional Great to bear the crimson was later it warped known for a sinister la the disorded tan- fruit of crime grip sho maintained over the old man to told Interbe yeason that he apparently made no protest pergle Of these drably torHer one decent passion" writes her mitted her cut the throat of her to get sway with it A former rid erises tho note of aged employer and avarice was often “judicious historian James Ttvnsn schoolteacher and bachelor Brouard able Isawas her love of her daughter paramour Alfred struck Her husband continued in his half-ma- d folly of subOne day they found Brouard lying belle" Brouard while he slept hardde —a Mrs la to Mare jection motionless on his bed From bii wrinrealized lad— The motives greed ardent eve but when the rheumy Just When she bought an expensive motor kled throat a bretdknife working protruded even in their early of old Brouard fell lingeringly on the car and charged ci i since Farmer Brouard i it to his account Brou- He had been savagely slashed with Germarried life that W had apparently ripe Gertrude is uncertain But from ard hitherto famous for his frugality was and dead the weapon Impromptu aU on his money willed trude was cheating the first moment of their acquaintancemerely gave a smile of senile affection— Suspicion almost instantly fell on him not merely with ship she seems to have exerted an alsevvral thousand and footed the bill Gertrude and she was arrested other men but in a most hypnotic spell over him SHE DEFIED HIM pounds to the This automobile Gertrude used for a charged with murder Her defense money tense Tho Eminent Pathologist Sir Twice before she entered Brouard’s sinister purpose It had bran her custom consisted almost solely of the iterathe before Almost and flirtatious GerBarnard Spilsbury Who Cam employ Gertrude had seen service in the to go from Le Camp Joinet where Brou-ar- a tion that she had known nothing of trude 26 pitiful little honey- capacity of a general maidservant’ Both lived to the town proper in the the crime till returning from an erto Goarnity From Scotland she over was moon childhood From her Yard to Give Important Msdi-ctime sha had found herself involved in course of her love trysts with other men rand she had seen the corpse in pass- him had deep“ plunged she had craved gold-g- old Evidanco in tho Cato of But walking was tedious “The Rock" ing Brouard’s door on the way to her tragedy She into debt ly and kisses PromisHit Majesty Va da la Mara where the assignations were held seemed own bedroom "The only thing J can While employed as a maid by a Scotforced him to pay her -so far away—hence the necessity for say is that I did not do it" Tktro Wat a Spot on Har ten cuity is an ugly word officer Gertrude wife his and tish army week as shilling! a With which to lash a wo‘ to was addicted Dressing Gown— transportation her mistress discovered t the judiThroughout what she mockingly man but there’s no Ono day the Major found his drink But unfortunately on one of these ex- cial proceedings she reo that “Gertie of the Rock" bestowed referred to as “my alimony" and comhe dead afterward mate smash-up had unruffled Under Gertrude a Shortly mained hand— fifty pounds ho gavo her to buy mitted auidde favor With a ber ' "i ' ' peditions cross examination thrir i obvioua joy-riNews of this with its 1 on trivia with furniture gaudy The girl’s early environment wasn’t next employer was a lady implications reached Brouard’a cart calm was punctuated by at a loss to account of Gertrude's conducive to the good life Physical maPsychology is not V Sho Ha flew into f refinement but sparse means ’ to pay impudence toward the rage and refused and Gertrude’s for on blossoms perverse Guernsey early v turity blind went and court surprisingly suddenly for repairs Determining factors ontered soon after died too Gertrude was precocious of body even streak ease had clime It is recorded thaf and colored her life with fatal punctual ’ for that lush It was possibly at this crucial point ur-l’ti-Because the eurieue ludr — Imeld Brouard a JbomafkrtiaJonnd— grMrtriJ HyWKensha-wher first " ioveifrlroccamd-whe(i- — aci Sirrurei jf rj Th I decision Lighthouse aad Signal Towor Off the Guernsey Ceest nard Spilsbury Chief PaFrom then on her amatory history was an abatoir In consequence she early renarian was fond of prattling about the Frem Which News of Gertie’s Conviction Wes double capacity of servant-mistres- s thologist of the Home In her to this her and leave he Of to became tne habituated the gushwould sight that planned legacy pale 6 senes of conquests Fleshed to tho Mainland women was Office out the had dread found But that her death prevailed idea of blood violent the inordinately Bnnviland gratified achievements of the Marquise de ing umiiiii i hi Kif rm— swems i BEARDED ar Sin-iat- ar Car-trad- -- worth the coveting worth the striving-fo- r was a The eet-u- p perfect stalemate On the one hand Brouard i ( f' f f 'vS Gold and Slew To Get ‘V peace-abidin- dod-deri- 1 patient high-spirit- ' s ed ed yH al rtf i equan-dered-th- '’ too-lavis- h anti-soci- a Knihurti ?" ut 1 de al r - W — V V 4 |