Sin & the Sea

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," said Van Rie, his voice shaky. "As God is my witness, I'm telling the truth."

While the jury weighed his words and the evidence last week, Defendant Van Rie and his faithful, matronly wife, Nella, 31, sat in a bare detention room holding hands and reciting the rosary. Finally, after deliberating through 20 ballots and almost 16 hours, the jurors reached their verdict: not guilty.

In a dramatic, 45-minute monologue, Van Rie had concluded his testimony by repudiating a "false" statement--sweated from him, he said, in a nightlong grilling by New York and Boston police--that he visited Lynn Kauffman's cabin the night of her death. Nor could the prosecution produce a witness who had seen him near the cabin. Sweeping aside a mass of unconvincing circumstantial evidence, the jury's verdict left the death of pretty, 23-year-old Lynn Kauffman a mystery-shrouded suicide. Said the foreman of the jury: "I don't think the state proved its case." Said happy, tearful Nella Van Rie, embracing her husband: "Willem has promised that he will never again go to sea."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.