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I'm sure most are familiar with the Goold case, but I'll post a couple of articles on them below anyway, that I featured in my new blog this week.
What's caught my eye here is that apparently the trunk in which the Goold's unfortunate victim was found was in the process of being sent on to London when it was delayed at Marseilles and someone noticed blood leaking out of it.
Mentioned also is that portions of the victim were in a bag belonging to Vere Goold, which he apparently carried with him (including apparently to dinner, where it was kept under the table) on the ship from Monaco to France.
It seems the Goolds were smooth operators, even trying to bribe the railway staff at Marseilles to look the other way.
What I'm wondering here is, WHY were they sending Mme. Levin's remains to London? Why not just drop them in a canal or the sea?
But moreso, I find myself asking whether they'd actually done this before... as a way of making sure their victims were weren't identified as murder victims overseas, thus aiding the Goolds in escaping detection as murderers.
Were some of those unidentified body parts found over the years in London perhaps the result of a murderous grifting operation?
Was this why Abberline was spending time in Monaco?
Argyle Liberal and District Recorder: Tuesday 13 August 1907
MURDER MOST FOUL..
WOMAN'S MUTILATED BODY
A ghastly crime has just been brought to light at Marseilles. The persons so far involved in the affair are an English man. named Goold and his French wife, and a man named Bucher.
The Goolds had just come from Monte Carlo, and had ordered a trunk.that formed part of their luggage to be despatched to London
The trunk, however, became an object of great suspicion while at the railway station, and the fact that blood was found oozing out of the bottom prompted the railway officials to communicate with the police authorities.
The opening of the mysterious box by the police revealed a sight from which the officials shrank with horror, for lying at the bottom of the . trunk- was the headless body of a woman.
An inspection was then made of Goold's portmanteau and in it were found the head and the legs.
The story told by the Goolds when interrogated by the police was that the hapless victim of this grim tragedy was a Swedish woman named Livey. She used to frequent the gambling saloons at Monte Carlo, and was murdered in their house by a disappointed lover.
Fearing arrest, owing to the body being on their premises, tho Goolds decided to return to England with the corpse.
(Aus-note: this is clearly a pile of BS)
The man Bucher, who has been arrested is alleged to have thrown the woman's entrails in a lavatory. It is reported at Marseilles that the woman Livey was possessed of considerable jewellery.
The Goolds formerly belonged to Waterloo, Liverpool.
THE MONTE CARLO MURDER.
THE GOULDS CONVICTED.
The trial at Monte Carlo of Vere and Violette Goold for the murder of their guest. Madame Levin on August 4 ended on Wednesday, when Mrs. Goold was sentenced to death and Vere Goold to penal servitude for life (writes under date December 5 the correspondent of a London paper who was present at tho trial). The court was crowded with elegantly-gowned women.
Everything possible was raked in against the Goolds - that Goold was drunkard; that he' usurped his brother's title: that he made his wife's acquaintance through a matrimonial advertisement; that Mrs. Goold was an illiterate peasant girl, domestic servant, and a waitress in a cafe. It was when he came to the actual narration of the murder as he imagined it to have been committed that the Advocate-General's dramatic gift was given the rein. He stormed at the prisoners. He raised his voice high in horrified contemplation of their crime; he dropped it impressively as he described the furniture of Mrs. Goold's bedroom, including "mosquito curtains", "virginal whiteness": he ran over the gamut of all the emotions except pity; "piled up the agony" as high as he could; and worked himself up into a passion of abuse.
The spectators clearly enjoyed it. "Qu'il parle bien," they whispered. "Regardez la femme Goold." The unhappy woman was indeed in a desperate state. She had maintained her statuesque position while M. Allain accused her vehemently of taking part in the murder, while he dwelt upon the loathsome details of the cutting up and packing away of the body, while he thundered at her the question, "How could you sit and eat your dinner with the head and legs of your victim underneath the table?"
She almost seemed to smile when he contrasted in moving tones the noble behaviour of the members of the "class laborieuse" who caused the Goolds to be arrested in spite of the offer of heavy "tips," with the atrocious act of this degraded "baronet," who nevertheless retained, he admitted, some traits "de gentleman." But by the time he came to the question of the punishment to be demanded Mrs. Goold's strength had begun to give way, and when, with outstretched arm and malevolent gaze, be accused her husband of attempting to shelter her from justice she broke into hysterical cries.
It was a horrible scene. As my eye rested upon the crucified figure hanging behind the president's chair, I could not (remarks a spectator) help wondering how Christ would have dealt with such malefactors as these. Of one thing, at any rate, I am very certain. Nothing could be less in accord with the spirit of Christ's unity than such torture inflicted even upon the most hardened criminals.
In conclusion, the death sentence was demanded against both, the chief points M Allain relied upon to convict Mrs. Goold, of direct complicity being first, that she invited Mme. Levin to tea; secondly, that she changed her clothes after the crime, thirdly that there were on her body marks " indicating a struggle", fourthly that Mme. Levin s wounds could not havr been inflicted by one person; fifthly that Goold could not have used both the large and the small knives himself; and finally, that Mrs. Goold could not have been out of the room when her husband received Mme. Levin, because two liqueur glasses had been used, and it was not likely that a whisky-drinker like Goold would take kirsch.
Moving Defence.
In striking contrast to the weak voice and factitious indignation, obviously assumed, of the official advocate, who was nevertheless doing his duty under a system utterly foreign to English ideas, were the vigorous utterances and masculine sincerity of Goold's counsel, Maitre Kunemann. Eloquently, but without any taint of theatricalism, he put forward every possible argument in his client's favor. I have written "his client," but in our sense of the word the relations between, them are not really those of counsel and client at all. Maitre Kunemann was appointed to make out the best case he could tor the male prisoner, but he stated distinctly that the only direct instruction ha had received was to denounce as an insulting invention the statement that Mrs. Goold was Goold's mistress before she became his wife. As a matter of fact, Maitre Kunemann took entirely his own line. He described the crime as it appeared to him to have been committed, but he did not give by any means the same account of it as Goold himself. He suggested that the idea of stunning and robbing Mme. Levitt originated with Mrs. Goold, who induced her husband to conspire with her to carry it out. He further invited the court to believe that when Goold failed to stun his victim, and, in a state of terror and desperation stabbed her to stop her cries, blows were also struck by Mrs. Goold. Both these views were in direct conflict, with Goold's own statements.
It was at this point that Mrs. Goold was seized with another distressing fit of hysterical weeping, and, to the everlasting shame of the people of Monaco, it must be chronicled that the crowd in court greeted her choked exclamation, "C'est terrible," with laughter and jeers. Reference was made by Maitre Barbarin at the outset of his speech on behalf of Mrs. Goold to the inflamed and malevolent public opinion against which the prisoners had to contend. They stood, he pleaded, absolutely; alone, deserted even by their niece, their adopted daughter. Their pitiable position surely called for sympathy if not for indulgence. That Mrs. Goold was the "ame maîtresse" her husband could not deny, any more than he could deny that the murder was committed, but he did most strenuously contest the theory of the prosecution that the crime was planned by Mrs. Goold. It was clear to his mind that there was no premeditation at all. The penal code defined premeditation as design formed before action, and there was not a tittle of evidence to show that either pri- soner had any idea of killing Mme. Levin beforehand.
Then Maître Barbarin gave his version of the sinister event. In a pleasantly modulated voice and with skilfully phrased explanations, he elaborated on the theory that Goold struck Mme. Levin with the pestles in order to stun and rob her, but that the fatal blow was delivered in a fit of drunken madness in order to stop her cries, and that all Mrs. Goold did was to help her husband endeavor to escape the consequences of his shocking and insane act.
Then the prisoners were asked if they had anything further to say. Goo;d shook his head and answered, casually, glancing to right and left, "No, no " His wife replied firmly, "Non, Monsieur le President." Thereupon the judges left the court to consider the verdict.
Follows a period of tedious expectation for the audience. But what must be the state of mind of the prisoners? Are they contrasting their position . few months ago, when as Sir Vere and Lady Goold they were rich in acquaintances, free, and -more important still- unburdened with horrible memories? Are they stupefied by the change in their circumstances, or are they thinking of the future? Mrs. Goold, even in the midday interval, has spoken to several journalists of the possibility of her acquittal, and of starting again in business. Whether her husband was under any such illusions is far more doubtful. The only words he has been heard to speak to his wife during the trial are, "God keep you," which he murmured as they were both brought into court this morning. That they were sincere no one could doubt who saw the glances of solicitude he cast towards his wife in the moments of her intense suffering. Did he mean them in the nature of a farewell ? If so, he had a truer pre-sentiment of the situation than she. For at five minutes past 7, after an hour and three-quarters' discussion, the members of the tribunal returned, and the president read out with loud, legal formalities, which, in the circumstances of suspense seemed terribly cruel, sentences of death on tha woman and hard labor in perpetuity on thi» man. With a haunting shriek of "I am innocent" she fell back in the arms of the warders. Goold merely nodded his head and looked pitifully at his wife. Never, surely, has a sentence of death been pronounced with less direct evidence of guilt.
But no one expects that the sentence will be carried out.
(Aus-note: Gotta wonder if they bribed this clearly sympathetic 'correspondent' too!)
THE GOOLDS' METHODS.
Further light is being thrown on the methods of the Goolds, who are under going trial at Monte Carlo for the murder of Madame Levin. Mr. Barker, a resident of Cap Martin, which lies between Monte Carlo and Mentone, informed the examining magistrate that on one occasion after a visit from the Goolds his wife missed a pendant worth 300 francs. The pendant was afterwards found among Mrs. Goold's jewels and she attempted to account for her possession of it by saying that she found it in the street. A rich lady, who has returned to England from a visit to Monte Carlo, states that two years ago Mrs. Goold, finding that she was a successful gambler, and noticing that she wore a necklace worth £4000, strongly forced an acquaintance with her, and urged her to call on her and her husband at their flat. Her persistence and her strange looks frightened the lady, and she did not call on the Goolds. She is now congratulating herself on having escaped the fate of Madame Levin.
MONTE CARLO MURDER.
GOOLDS' APPEAL DISMISSED, LONDON, Jan. 14.
The appeal of V. Goold and his wife against their conviction for the murder of Madam Levin at Monte Carlo in August last has been dismissed.
MONTE CARLO MURDER
THE GOOLDS, LONDON, March 11
Vere Goold has been sent to New Caledonia, and his wife has been imprisoned at Montpelier, both having to serve life sentences for the murder of Madame Levin at Monte Carlo last year
________________________________
What's caught my eye here is that apparently the trunk in which the Goold's unfortunate victim was found was in the process of being sent on to London when it was delayed at Marseilles and someone noticed blood leaking out of it.
Mentioned also is that portions of the victim were in a bag belonging to Vere Goold, which he apparently carried with him (including apparently to dinner, where it was kept under the table) on the ship from Monaco to France.
It seems the Goolds were smooth operators, even trying to bribe the railway staff at Marseilles to look the other way.
What I'm wondering here is, WHY were they sending Mme. Levin's remains to London? Why not just drop them in a canal or the sea?
But moreso, I find myself asking whether they'd actually done this before... as a way of making sure their victims were weren't identified as murder victims overseas, thus aiding the Goolds in escaping detection as murderers.
Were some of those unidentified body parts found over the years in London perhaps the result of a murderous grifting operation?
Was this why Abberline was spending time in Monaco?
Argyle Liberal and District Recorder: Tuesday 13 August 1907
MURDER MOST FOUL..
WOMAN'S MUTILATED BODY
A ghastly crime has just been brought to light at Marseilles. The persons so far involved in the affair are an English man. named Goold and his French wife, and a man named Bucher.
The Goolds had just come from Monte Carlo, and had ordered a trunk.that formed part of their luggage to be despatched to London
The trunk, however, became an object of great suspicion while at the railway station, and the fact that blood was found oozing out of the bottom prompted the railway officials to communicate with the police authorities.
The opening of the mysterious box by the police revealed a sight from which the officials shrank with horror, for lying at the bottom of the . trunk- was the headless body of a woman.
An inspection was then made of Goold's portmanteau and in it were found the head and the legs.
The story told by the Goolds when interrogated by the police was that the hapless victim of this grim tragedy was a Swedish woman named Livey. She used to frequent the gambling saloons at Monte Carlo, and was murdered in their house by a disappointed lover.
Fearing arrest, owing to the body being on their premises, tho Goolds decided to return to England with the corpse.
(Aus-note: this is clearly a pile of BS)
The man Bucher, who has been arrested is alleged to have thrown the woman's entrails in a lavatory. It is reported at Marseilles that the woman Livey was possessed of considerable jewellery.
The Goolds formerly belonged to Waterloo, Liverpool.
THE MONTE CARLO MURDER.
THE GOULDS CONVICTED.
The trial at Monte Carlo of Vere and Violette Goold for the murder of their guest. Madame Levin on August 4 ended on Wednesday, when Mrs. Goold was sentenced to death and Vere Goold to penal servitude for life (writes under date December 5 the correspondent of a London paper who was present at tho trial). The court was crowded with elegantly-gowned women.
Everything possible was raked in against the Goolds - that Goold was drunkard; that he' usurped his brother's title: that he made his wife's acquaintance through a matrimonial advertisement; that Mrs. Goold was an illiterate peasant girl, domestic servant, and a waitress in a cafe. It was when he came to the actual narration of the murder as he imagined it to have been committed that the Advocate-General's dramatic gift was given the rein. He stormed at the prisoners. He raised his voice high in horrified contemplation of their crime; he dropped it impressively as he described the furniture of Mrs. Goold's bedroom, including "mosquito curtains", "virginal whiteness": he ran over the gamut of all the emotions except pity; "piled up the agony" as high as he could; and worked himself up into a passion of abuse.
The spectators clearly enjoyed it. "Qu'il parle bien," they whispered. "Regardez la femme Goold." The unhappy woman was indeed in a desperate state. She had maintained her statuesque position while M. Allain accused her vehemently of taking part in the murder, while he dwelt upon the loathsome details of the cutting up and packing away of the body, while he thundered at her the question, "How could you sit and eat your dinner with the head and legs of your victim underneath the table?"
She almost seemed to smile when he contrasted in moving tones the noble behaviour of the members of the "class laborieuse" who caused the Goolds to be arrested in spite of the offer of heavy "tips," with the atrocious act of this degraded "baronet," who nevertheless retained, he admitted, some traits "de gentleman." But by the time he came to the question of the punishment to be demanded Mrs. Goold's strength had begun to give way, and when, with outstretched arm and malevolent gaze, be accused her husband of attempting to shelter her from justice she broke into hysterical cries.
It was a horrible scene. As my eye rested upon the crucified figure hanging behind the president's chair, I could not (remarks a spectator) help wondering how Christ would have dealt with such malefactors as these. Of one thing, at any rate, I am very certain. Nothing could be less in accord with the spirit of Christ's unity than such torture inflicted even upon the most hardened criminals.
In conclusion, the death sentence was demanded against both, the chief points M Allain relied upon to convict Mrs. Goold, of direct complicity being first, that she invited Mme. Levin to tea; secondly, that she changed her clothes after the crime, thirdly that there were on her body marks " indicating a struggle", fourthly that Mme. Levin s wounds could not havr been inflicted by one person; fifthly that Goold could not have used both the large and the small knives himself; and finally, that Mrs. Goold could not have been out of the room when her husband received Mme. Levin, because two liqueur glasses had been used, and it was not likely that a whisky-drinker like Goold would take kirsch.
Moving Defence.
In striking contrast to the weak voice and factitious indignation, obviously assumed, of the official advocate, who was nevertheless doing his duty under a system utterly foreign to English ideas, were the vigorous utterances and masculine sincerity of Goold's counsel, Maitre Kunemann. Eloquently, but without any taint of theatricalism, he put forward every possible argument in his client's favor. I have written "his client," but in our sense of the word the relations between, them are not really those of counsel and client at all. Maitre Kunemann was appointed to make out the best case he could tor the male prisoner, but he stated distinctly that the only direct instruction ha had received was to denounce as an insulting invention the statement that Mrs. Goold was Goold's mistress before she became his wife. As a matter of fact, Maitre Kunemann took entirely his own line. He described the crime as it appeared to him to have been committed, but he did not give by any means the same account of it as Goold himself. He suggested that the idea of stunning and robbing Mme. Levitt originated with Mrs. Goold, who induced her husband to conspire with her to carry it out. He further invited the court to believe that when Goold failed to stun his victim, and, in a state of terror and desperation stabbed her to stop her cries, blows were also struck by Mrs. Goold. Both these views were in direct conflict, with Goold's own statements.
It was at this point that Mrs. Goold was seized with another distressing fit of hysterical weeping, and, to the everlasting shame of the people of Monaco, it must be chronicled that the crowd in court greeted her choked exclamation, "C'est terrible," with laughter and jeers. Reference was made by Maitre Barbarin at the outset of his speech on behalf of Mrs. Goold to the inflamed and malevolent public opinion against which the prisoners had to contend. They stood, he pleaded, absolutely; alone, deserted even by their niece, their adopted daughter. Their pitiable position surely called for sympathy if not for indulgence. That Mrs. Goold was the "ame maîtresse" her husband could not deny, any more than he could deny that the murder was committed, but he did most strenuously contest the theory of the prosecution that the crime was planned by Mrs. Goold. It was clear to his mind that there was no premeditation at all. The penal code defined premeditation as design formed before action, and there was not a tittle of evidence to show that either pri- soner had any idea of killing Mme. Levin beforehand.
Then Maître Barbarin gave his version of the sinister event. In a pleasantly modulated voice and with skilfully phrased explanations, he elaborated on the theory that Goold struck Mme. Levin with the pestles in order to stun and rob her, but that the fatal blow was delivered in a fit of drunken madness in order to stop her cries, and that all Mrs. Goold did was to help her husband endeavor to escape the consequences of his shocking and insane act.
Then the prisoners were asked if they had anything further to say. Goo;d shook his head and answered, casually, glancing to right and left, "No, no " His wife replied firmly, "Non, Monsieur le President." Thereupon the judges left the court to consider the verdict.
Follows a period of tedious expectation for the audience. But what must be the state of mind of the prisoners? Are they contrasting their position . few months ago, when as Sir Vere and Lady Goold they were rich in acquaintances, free, and -more important still- unburdened with horrible memories? Are they stupefied by the change in their circumstances, or are they thinking of the future? Mrs. Goold, even in the midday interval, has spoken to several journalists of the possibility of her acquittal, and of starting again in business. Whether her husband was under any such illusions is far more doubtful. The only words he has been heard to speak to his wife during the trial are, "God keep you," which he murmured as they were both brought into court this morning. That they were sincere no one could doubt who saw the glances of solicitude he cast towards his wife in the moments of her intense suffering. Did he mean them in the nature of a farewell ? If so, he had a truer pre-sentiment of the situation than she. For at five minutes past 7, after an hour and three-quarters' discussion, the members of the tribunal returned, and the president read out with loud, legal formalities, which, in the circumstances of suspense seemed terribly cruel, sentences of death on tha woman and hard labor in perpetuity on thi» man. With a haunting shriek of "I am innocent" she fell back in the arms of the warders. Goold merely nodded his head and looked pitifully at his wife. Never, surely, has a sentence of death been pronounced with less direct evidence of guilt.
But no one expects that the sentence will be carried out.
(Aus-note: Gotta wonder if they bribed this clearly sympathetic 'correspondent' too!)
THE GOOLDS' METHODS.
Further light is being thrown on the methods of the Goolds, who are under going trial at Monte Carlo for the murder of Madame Levin. Mr. Barker, a resident of Cap Martin, which lies between Monte Carlo and Mentone, informed the examining magistrate that on one occasion after a visit from the Goolds his wife missed a pendant worth 300 francs. The pendant was afterwards found among Mrs. Goold's jewels and she attempted to account for her possession of it by saying that she found it in the street. A rich lady, who has returned to England from a visit to Monte Carlo, states that two years ago Mrs. Goold, finding that she was a successful gambler, and noticing that she wore a necklace worth £4000, strongly forced an acquaintance with her, and urged her to call on her and her husband at their flat. Her persistence and her strange looks frightened the lady, and she did not call on the Goolds. She is now congratulating herself on having escaped the fate of Madame Levin.
MONTE CARLO MURDER.
GOOLDS' APPEAL DISMISSED, LONDON, Jan. 14.
The appeal of V. Goold and his wife against their conviction for the murder of Madam Levin at Monte Carlo in August last has been dismissed.
MONTE CARLO MURDER
THE GOOLDS, LONDON, March 11
Vere Goold has been sent to New Caledonia, and his wife has been imprisoned at Montpelier, both having to serve life sentences for the murder of Madame Levin at Monte Carlo last year
________________________________
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