GIRL SHOOTS DEAD MAN

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 July 1931, Page 10

GIRL SHOOTS DEAD MAN

TO PREVENT BURIAL ALIVE In accordance with his dying wish, the body of Professor Arnaldo Consort) was shot through the heart by a girl teacher just before it was placed in a coffin. The girl was a teacher at the Royal Technical Institute, Rome, of which the professor was principal. She kept vigil all night by the professor’s body, and when the undertakers arrived, asked three other persons who had been sitting in the room to withdraw, saying that she must carry out a pledge to Consorti. Then she pulled a revolver from her handbag, unbuttoned the black coat and waistcoat in which the professor had been dressed for the lying in state, pressed the muzzle on the dead man’s heart —and fired.

To the bewildered relatives and friends she explained that the professor had, by repeated entreaties, prevailed upon her to promise that, in the event of his death, she should make sure that he was not buried alive.

He had persuaded both his wife and his eldest daughter to promise to pierce his heart with a hatpin, but marently the only person who kept her pledge was his friend the teacher.