Murder in Monte Carlo

by Michael Sheridan

  “He is to some extent analogous of the murderer as victim which of course in no way exculpates his responsibility for the foul crime that he carried out, most likely at the behest of his wife. He must suffer the consequences but I am bound to say that it will be held by his defence that there were, as in the case of Bompard in the Gouffé murder, extenuating circumstances. Whatever the difficulties of his youth, I see nothing that would constitute the genesis of a killer. He had clearly lost the plot of his life and disappointment of expectations. Not enough, in my opinion, to initiate the crime and lead him to this misfortune of circumstance.”

  He pointed to the investigation file and the extensive account of Mrs Goold’s previous history prior to her marriage to Vere Goold, which proved her to a person of devious personality and behaviour, bordering and exceeding criminality at times. It described a woman without any moral compass who was determined to exploit any opportunity and person who came her way, but little aptitude to maintain that advantage or sustain any course of action to the point where it brought any lasting success.

  “This,” he said, “was one simple example, but not alone of her character. Fortune for this woman was a matter of chance and not to be gained by hard work and sweat of the brow. She, not born of riches, was devoted to attaining the status of wealth by any means available to her at any time. Worse still, she has not to this juncture expressed any remorse for or any responsibility for her actions. She has in my view both sociopathic and psychotic tendencies, but I will allow the court to determine that matter.”

  The professor then finished his summing up, finding general approval of the group which then retired for coffee and further discussions on the subject. Time was marching on towards the trial, which it was generally agreed would happen sometime in December with even more intense scrutiny from the local and world press – though most of the facts had already been ventilated in the preliminary hearings. For the accused the shadow of the guillotine loomed large.

  13

  LE DERNIER SET

  By the same law of periodical repetition, everything that has happened once must happen again and again – and not capriciously, but at regular periods – and each thing is in its own period not another’s, and each obeying its own law. The same nature which delights in period repetition in the skies is the nature which orders the affairs of the earth. Let us not underrate the value of that hint.

  ~ MARK TWAIN ~

  MONTE CARLO, 1907

  In October of 1907 the Goolds awaited their upcoming trial in Monte Carlo as had some years before the killers of Gouffé, Eyraud and Bompard, in Paris. Both murderous couples linked inextricably by the use of a trunk to dispose the bodies of the victims. The very horror of the crimes was defined by an inanimate object designed to carry luggage, not the remains of a human. The trunk was the object, fuelled by media reports in both cases, that most captured the imagination of the public.

  Both sets of killers, a man and woman in each event, were almost superseded in the public consciousness by that pragmatic but of course entirely dramatic method of carriage: the trunk. Both killings were inspired by an overwhelming need and desire for quick money to sort out financial difficulties. A gamble by perpetrators whose very existence had been dependent on such an activity.

  No different in essence than the motive that drives speculation in any arena, the casino and its apparently more legitimate counterpart, the stock exchange. Gamblers are exposed to the same risks in both houses, for stocks and shares forever and a day before this year were subject to the Wheel of Fortune, the spins of which were not a lot removed from the action of the roulette wheel.

  Schemes were the stock-in-trade of the players, and so it was in that month that a gamble would induce a financial panic centred on the New York Stock Exchange. It was started by a stock manipulation scheme to corner the market in F. August Heinze’s United Copper Company. Heinze formed a close relationship with a notorious Wall Street banker Charles W. Morse, who had once successfully cornered New York’s ice market, and the couple gained control of many banks.

  Suffice it to say that the activities of these two who embarked on a somewhat criminal enterprise brought the banking system to its knees (‘The Panic of 1907’) and required the expertise of the famous financier J.P. Morgan to save the banking system by a form of recapitalisation.

  Morgan, when questioned by a congressional committee in the aftermath, got to the heart of the matter of speculation of all kinds. And by more unusual analogy, the gambling of murder although the latter was clearly not in his mind at the time. The following exchange between him and Samuel Untermyer, corporate lawyer, has become famous as an astute perception of the psychological nature of banking.

  Untermyer:

  Is not commercial credit based primarily upon money or property?

  Morgan:

  No sir, the first thing is character.

  Untermyer:

  Before money or property?

  Morgan:

  Before money or anything else. Money cannot buy it. A man I do not trust could not get money from me on all the bonds in Christendom.

  Trust indeed is everything – that trust which Gouffé and Levin inevitably displayed to their killers and lost the gamble that they had taken without knowledge of the gamble of the killers. But inevitably there was for them, like the speculators in New York, a price to pay. That is also an innate part of periodical repetition.

  The investigative teams gathered in Monte Carlo at the beginning of December, not expecting failure, but careful nonetheless, of the outcome. The die in relation to the Goolds was well cast.

  Dupin was confident but just shrugged his shoulders when asked. “We’ll see. The evidence is all there, we have nothing more to do. What more can you do?”

  “Indeed,” replied Garonne, “that is true. It is all left now to the legal team.”

  But the confession of Goold made the verdict beyond any doubt guilty. The trial, under the French system in which an extensive examination in court precedes it, would prove somewhat of an anti-climax.

  The first day was uneventful, occupied as it was by preliminary judicial matters. Some basic facts to which all parties were familiar were ventilated. A number of witnesses gave evidence which added little to the already well-known facts.

  The male prisoner’s antecedents were established. In 1866 Goold’s brother James Stephen emigrated to South Australia where for many years he led a somewhat hermetic existence as a railway ganger at Gladstone. On the death of his uncle Sir Henry Goold Bt in 1893, he became fourth baronet. There was a sister Frances who never married. There were a number of other male siblings who according to Goold’s earlier evidence had died.

  Mrs Goold, born Marie Violet, a daughter of Hippolyte Girodin of Château de la Sône, near Saint-Marcellin, Isère, France. Against her parents’ wishes, she married a local young man. But this did not work out and a week after the wedding she left him and went to Geneva to work as a dressmaker. In 1870 she travelled to London and became a companion to an English lady. Sometime afterwards she accompanied her to India where, her husband having died in the interim, she married a Captain Wilkinson who subsequently died. Three years later in 1886, a widow again, she returned to London. She sold her jewellery and with the proceeds set herself up as a court dressmaker at 22 Hereford Road. Around this time she became acquainted with Goold and they married at the church of St Mary of the Angels, Paddington, London, on August 22nd 1891. Both gave their ages as 38.

  After much interrogation Goold confessed the murder but his wife protested her innocence.

  The previous October, Maître Kuneman, Vere Goold’s counsel, had applied to the magistracy for an expert to examine his client’s mental condition. Goold occupied himself by reading a number of religious books. He asked for a priest to be sent, so that he could make his confession. Evidence was offered of remorse on the prisoner’s part.

  The British consul at Marseilles requested that the case be transferred to Monte Car
lo and this was agreed after the authorities established that Mrs Goold had lost her French nationality.

  News travelled before them and when they arrived at Monte Carlo station they were greeted by a hostile crowd chanting “Death to them!” The trial commenced on December 2nd 1907 before Presiding Judge Baron de Rolland, assisted by two assessors and three other judges. There was a large public attendance and approaches to the court were guarded by carabinieri and police.

  Among the 30 witnesses called was Mlle Isobel Girodin, the niece of the wife, who had been living with them in Monte Carlo. She stated that Goold often drank and quarrelled with his wife. Goold claimed that his wife had been an accomplice, but she strenuously denied any involvement in the actual killing.

  The murdered woman was a Danish subject, Emma Levin. She had visited the Goolds to reclaim a loan but, during a furious argument, tempers rose and the woman was struck. The prosecutor Maître Allain said that the crime took place on the 4th of August at the Goold’s flat in the Villa Menesini, where they had led a hand-to-mouth existence, while frequently gambling at the casino. He added that the couple sank from borrowing to stealing to murder. He produced evidence that the crime could have not been committed by one person and called for both to receive the death penalty.

  Irish Times

  Wednesday, December 4th, 1907

  MONTE CARLO MURDER.

  SECOND DAY OF THE TRIAL.

  Press Association Foreign Special

  Monte Carlo, December 3rd.

  The first part of today’s sitting in the Goold case was taken up by the medical evidence. Dr Dufour, who made the post mortem examination of the remains of the murdered woman, gave the court a catalogue of the wounds he discovered. There were, he stated, numerous contusions on the face, eight wounds on the head, four small wounds on the neck, all caused by the same instrument, and finally two deep wounds on the back. He adhered to his deduction that more than one person had taken part in the murder.

  Dr Grasset who had examined Goold to ascertain his mental condition described him as intellectually degenerate and a drunkard who at times would be obstinate and at other times vacillating. What he needed was a controlling influence of a stronger mind and this he found in his wife. The witness considered Goold’s responsibility for his acts slightly diminished.

  A porter named Berard employed at the Marseilles railway station deposed that he was engaged by the Goolds to send off a trunk, the stench from which aroused his suspicion. A hotel waiter named Vincent gave evidence of having been requested by Goold to find him a flat in Marseilles. The prisoner also asked for packing paper.

  The station commissionaire Pons who was engaged to forward the trunk also spoke of the gruesome discovery. When he noticed coagulated blood on the trunk, he reported the matter to the police and, acting on their instructions, he went to Hotel du Louvre and told Goold he must come to the railway station to register the trunk himself. Goold called a cab and forbade the witness to accompany him, offering him a bribe of 20 francs. This only confirmed his suspicions and, jumping up beside the driver, he told him to drive to the station which he did and there the fugitives were arrested.

  The President of the court complimented the witness on the intelligent manner in which he had furthered the ends of justice.

  The cab driver, Bizot, told how he was hailed by the prisoners in front of the hotel and engaged to drive them to the station. He confirmed the evidence of the previous witness and added that Goold told him to drive fast and gave contradictory directions as to the route he wanted to take. When he was ordered to stop, he noticed that Mrs Goold while getting out of the cab fell. Her husband seemed completely upset, but the witness could not say if he was intoxicated.

  On December 5th the Daily Globe, New York,boasting of scooping the New York Times, triumphantly published the following:

  MARIE GOOLD MUST DIE BY

  GUILLOTINE.

  CONVICTED AT MONTE CARLO OF

  MURDERING EMMA LEVIN, HER GUEST.

  Lady Macbeth Reborn – Husband, Her Helper, Gets Life Sentence.

  After a speedy trial at the Superior Court of Monaco, Vere St Leger Goold and his wife Marie were convicted of the murder of Emma Levin here last summer. The court found that Mrs Goold was the chief instigator of the crime and sentenced her to death by the guillotine and that Goold was less responsible by reason of being under the influence of liquor at the time of the murder. He was sentenced to imprisonment for life.

  Great crowds within and without the building received the announcement with excitement and applause following the rendering of the verdict. The trial of the Goolds consumed less than three days. It attracted attention from all over the world. The news out of Monte Carlo is huge.

  The New York Times treated the story with a lot more restraint, something which of course had been entirely absent during the whole case. A dismembered body in a trunk in the fabulous but shady surroundings of Monte Carlo was not a murder scenario that would exercise restraint in any age.

  On the very same day as the Goold verdict was carried, the New York Times reprinted an article from The Outlook Magazine that placed the newspapers at the forefront of the communications world.

  The affairs of the whole world are now spread before us at a moment of rapid and dramatic change. Nowhere has the story of real life been more dramatic, fuller of surprises, more commanding in its interest than in this country where the newspapers are as interesting as the novels . . .

  Sooner or later, such a tide of vitality will find its way into literature, but for the immediate spending of its energy, the newspaper offers the most available channel. Sooner or later, the permanent record will take the place of the vivid, partial, inartistic but vital report of the comedy and tragedy of life; but would it not be surprising if it should appear that for the moment men are more interested in fact than fiction, more interested in the serial story told by the newspaper than in that told by the novelist?

  Hawera & Normanby Star

  THE TRUNK TRAGEDY.

  GOOLDS TRIED AT MONTE CARLO.

  The trial at Monte Carlo of those callous creatures Vere Goold and his wife for the cold-blooded murder of Madame Levin has ended, as it could only end, in the conviction of both. But whilst the death sentence has been passed on Madame Goold, it is not in the least likely to be carried into effect – the husband’s punishment is penal servitude for life. Though condemned by her own confessions and those of her husband and by the evidence piled up remorselessly against her by the prosecution, Madame Goold seems to have been quite confident that she would be acquitted and confided to her counsel her plans for her future as a free woman.

  These included an action against the court interpreter for inaccurately translating evidence and a trip to America or Australia where she intended to open up a business as a dressmaker.

  During the trial, though obviously depressed, the female Goold never once betrayed any signs of remorse, until there was talk of the death sentence. Then she broke down and sobbed aloud and later indulged in hysterical screams of “C’est terrible.”

  The Advocate-General, after recapitulating the unworthy lives of the prisoners, and “reconstructing” with a wealth of gory details the crime for which she was arraigned, proceeded to a dramatic denunciation of the vile woman in the dock.

  “If,” he cried with terrible earnestness, “crime could be punished with two deaths, you would deserve them both. You have horrified the public conscience, not only with your crime, but by your callous behaviour and cynicism.” Concerning Vere Goold, the Advocate-General spoke of him with more or less contemptuous pity, as a drink and drug debauched creature, completely under the control of his wife. But he made no distinction between the prisoners when he called upon the court to sentence them.

  He asked that the death penalty be passed on both. The conclusion of the prosecutor’s speech elicited loud applause! This demonstration of popular feeling elicited from the President a mild rebuke. He reminded the audience that t
he accused were in the hands of the law and dubbed the demonstration “unseemly”.

  Maître Kuneman made a brave attempt to mitigate the enormity of Vere Goold’s crime, expiating on his efforts to clear his wife of all responsibility for the murder. Maïtre Kuneman proceeded to describe the tragedy, making special point of the look Mrs Goold gave her husband at the critical moment, and the commanding effect of it, which impelled him to go into the kitchen, bring the pestle and strike the victim.

  Premeditation, he urged, was not established. If Goold had wished to kill Madame Levin, a single blow would have sufficed. His only object was to stun her. Passing next to the male prisoner’s mental condition, Maïtre Kuneman said Dr Grasset had diagnosed premature senile decay. Goold was a curious mixture of physical contrasts. He appeared to have no proper sense of the enormity of this crime and yet he was moved to tears when speaking of his wife.

  After quoting several other contradictory traits of his client’s character, counsel pointed out how his will had been enfeebled and his mind debased by excessive alcoholic indulgence. The medical reports were to the effect that Goold’s responsibility for his acts had been “seriously attenuated” and counsel begged the judges to bear that in mind.

  Maïtre Barbarin, Mrs Goold’s counsel, admitted that the position of the prisoners was desperate. With regard to Goold’s confession counsel submitted that those facts which were personal were admissible for himself but not for his wife, who denied all participation in the crime. There was no proof against her; but only presumptive evidence. He maintained, further, that there had been no premeditation.

  Counsel, in conclusion, protested against the application of the death sentence, and asked the court to impose a term of imprisonment.

  The Advocate-General, replying, said he neither hoped for or desired the death penalty, but a study of the dossier had convinced him of the imperious necessity, in the interests of justice, of demanding the supreme punishment in this case.