Louis Pons could not forget the trunk he had lifted onto the luggage rack on his way to London.
The man was responsible for luggage at the railway station La Gare Saint-Charles in Marseille and as a result was used to all kinds of rubbish.
He felt something strange about this huge trunk that had been delivered on the morning of August 5, 1907.
Pons decided to look into the matter more closely. He frowned as he leaned over the trunk.
Viscous liquid seeped from the trunk, forming a dark red puddle on the floor directly in front of the toes of the employee’s freshly polished shoes.
Viscous liquid seeped from the trunk, forming a dark red puddle on the floor directly in front of the toes of the employee’s freshly polished shoes.
With trembling hands, Pons turned over the tag that showed the name of the bag’s owner, and it read Vere Goold.
This name was to be on everyone’s lips throughout France, for the discovery of this bloody trunk marked the beginning of one of the most gruesome murders the French had ever known.
The next day, Louis Fons called the police. In the blood-soaked trunk, the officers found a dismembered body.
Drinking ruined his career
This was not the first time Goold had attracted attention. Two decades earlier, he had been one of the main hopeful stars of the new sport called tennis. The upper-class boy Goold was so talented that he won the Irish Championship in 1879.
The murder of Emma Levin was described in detail in the French newspaper “Le Petit Journal”.
The trial became a farce
1
Goold changed his testimony
Goold and Giraudin changed their testimony when they anticipated that they would not be acquitted of the crime. Goold instead stated that he had killed Levin in a frenzy when she tried to get him to lend her money.
2
The wife received a longer sentence
Marie Giraudin’s determined demeanor in the courtroom indicated to the judges that she had the idea for the robbery and they sentenced her to death. The sentence was appealed and soon after changed to life imprisonment.
3
Millionaires cut down
Giraudin and Goold received lengthy sentences, but they had admitted in court to keeping Emma Levin’s body in a bathtub overnight and dismembering it the next day to cover up the crime.
At the championship in Wimbledon that same year, Goold easily reached the final, but then succumbed to the Englishman John Hartley. This was the third time the championship was held at Wimbledon. Hartley was not only content to defeat Goold, but also mocked him, calling him a “bee-tailed and wild” Irishman.
Goold found it difficult to accept the loss and sought the favor of the bars in London. The aspiring athlete made his way slowly but surely to the dogs.
Goold was rekindled in 1883 when he met a charming woman named Marie Giraudin who worked as a ladies’ tailor.
They got married and lived the sweet life happily for a while or until the bills started piling up.
“They denied killing the woman, but said she had approached them the previous Sunday in order to ask for money, they said.”
The Times, 6 August 1907.
The couple’s only recourse was to get a wealthy friend to provide a loan for the debt.
When the days of debt came, the couple moved to another city, where they began to cultivate friendships with new people who they thought could borrow money.
In 1907, the couple started to become more and more sheltered, who decided to cross their paths and try their luck in the casinos of Monte Carlo.
There, the couple showed off a lot and decorated themselves with false royal titles. Luck at the gambling table let up, but the loan seemed to play with the couple nonetheless.
In one of the casinos, the couple spotted a wealthy widow named Emma Levin. Levin was happy to lend them money, until she made new friends. Then Goold and Giraudin had to flee again.
As they were about to pack their bags, Levin knocked on the door of the suite where the couple lived. She demanded that the debt be paid.
An umbrella decided the outcome
Goold and Giraudin were immediately taken into custody.
Investigating the couple’s residence, police found a hammer, a saw and blood stains, as well as an umbrella that had belonged to Mrs. Levin.
The couple maintained their innocence. “They denied having killed the woman but said she had approached them the previous Sunday in order to ask for money”, they said in an interview in the English newspaper The Times on August 6.
Goold also claimed that a jealous lover had killed Mrs Levin. This outrageous statement did not pass muster in the courtroom and the couple were found guilty.
Marie Giraudin spent the last years of her life in prison in Montpellier, where she died of typhus in 1914.
Vere Goold was sent into exile to French Guiana, where he died by his own hand almost a year after arriving there, aged only 56.
