Gripping the prisoner's box in the crowded Boston courtroom, the thin, drawn defendant spoke haltingly in accented English to the twelve men who would decide his fate. "I have committed the sin of adultery with Mrs. Lynn Kauffman, and my wife has forgiven me of punishment," said Dutch Radio Operator Willem Van Rie, 31, accused of killing the Chicago divorcee and throwing her battered body into Boston harbor after a torrid, 44-day passage from Singapore aboard the freighter Utrecht (TIME, Oct. 12). "But I never kicked, or hit, or beat Mrs. Kauffman,"...
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