VIOLENT QUARREL

Evening Star, Issue 23083, 8 October 1938, Page 29

VIOLENT QUARREL

PROFESSOR AND WIFE MAN DISAPPEARS OVERBOARD One of the lofty decks of the French liner Normandie was. the scene of an amazing drama at midnight when the ship was not far distant from New York. Intervening in a violent quarrel between husband and wife, a sailor saved the woman from being thrown overboard. Tragedy, however, followed swiftly for the husband was missed from the ship a few moments later - in circumstances which left no doubt that he had jumped into the sea. GRIPPED BY THROAT. The man who vanished was Robert Duncan, aged 35, professor of political science at Colgate University, Hamilton. New York. He and his wife went up on the boat deck, presumably to take a midnight stroll, just before the seaman, Joseph Bronard, heard a scream. Running up, he found Professor Duncan gripping his wife by the throat and ■knockingvher head against this rail. He wrenched the woman, who by this time had fainted, from her husband’s grasp. While he was tending her, Professor Duncan disappeared into the darkness between two lifeboats. Mrs Duncan’s first words when she revived were: “ Don’t mind me. Get my husband. I’m afraid he will try to commit suicide.” “ GET MY HUSBAND.” A doctor who examined her found her injuries so serious that an operation had to be *>erformed to save her life. As she went under the ether, she murmured, “ Get my husband.” Meanwhile, the loud speaker system was calling Professor Duncan’s name over arid over again throughout the ship without result. Sailors peered over the boat deck 85ft above the sea, and searchlights were trained on the water, but there was no sign of the missing man. The purser reported when the Normandie docked at New York that the professor must have jumped overboard.