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Show TRIPLE MURDER CASEJNLONDON London. March 23, 2:18 p. tn. Charged with the murder of three women George Joseph Smith in the Bow street court here toda heard I Public Prosecutor Bodkin charge him I with making away with three of his wives. Each woman, it was charged, had been murdered shortly after Smith had married her Each woman was found dead in her bath. The case has come to be known as the "brides in bath " cases Smith described himself him-self as a man of Independent means According to evidence of Scotland Yards, he made use of various fictitious ficti-tious names In his matrimonial ventures ven-tures The women he married were found dead a few days after the ceremony. cere-mony. Verdicts of accidental deatb were at first returned, but later certain cer-tain of the bodies were exhumed and charges of murder preferred. The names of the three women and the dates of the alleged murders were given by the public prosecutor :'s follows Beatrice Munday. July 1912; Alice Burnham. December. 1913, and Mar-garet Mar-garet Lofty. December, 1914 According to the e ldence given a' a preliminary hearing Smith was married under the name of John Lloyd to Margaret Elizabeth Lofty at a registry office at Bath in Decem- ber. 1914. The couple came to London the same da and the next morning the bride was found dead in her bath Her husband called a doctor doc-tor who "reported the matter An inquest was held The jury brought in a verdict of accidental death. In February, information reached the police that Lloyd was not the husband's name. He was arrested and identified, the police say, as George Joseph Smith who. in Novem-ber, Novem-ber, 1913. had married at Portsmouth Miss Alice Burnham. who. a month later, also had been found dead in her bath. In this case, too, a coroners jury brought in a verdict of accidental death. The police also have had the body of another woman exhumed. This woman, who also died in her bath shortly after her marriage at Heme Bay. was married to a man who gave the name ol Henry Williams Will-iams and who Is believed by the police po-lice to be George Joseph Smith. Prosecutor Bodkin said the accused had been married five times in all His first wife was Caroline Beatrice Thornhill. whom he married in 1898, and who now is on her way to Ion don from Canada "The case is remarkable for the greed for wealth which was the dominant domi-nant motive in the taking of these three lives," the prosecutor said. "We shall show that at the death of two of them 2,800 pounds ($14 000) was obtained aud that the prisoner, when arrested, was in a fair way to obtain i I Too pounds more " The prosecutor related how Smith 1 had ardently courted each woman and had obtained from each a will making him the sole legatee. ' In the death of these three women precisely similar circumstances existed. exist-ed. Mr Bodkin said. Each died from drowning in her bath and each was first discovered b the prisoner " The prosecutor 6aid he considered it remarkable that the prisoner had been able to face the coroner's juries i untrapped after each death, and that 1 he should only at last be brought to j court on a technicality regarding the use of a false name in an application for a marriage license. oo I |