SHOCKED TO DEATH

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 3714, 12 October 1926, Page 7

SHOCKED TO DEATH

| MURDER BY SUGGESTION VICTIM KILLED BY PLAID WATER Confession of a murder by suggestion is made in an anonymous communication to Scotland Yard by a correspondent who says he committed the crime in a Harrogate hotel twelve years ago. The diabolical ingenuity of the plot is described below by the ‘Sunday Chronicle’s’ special correspondent. The world’s most amazing murder mvstery, a crime committed with an ingenuity that makes it almost impossible to bring it home to its perpetrator, has been revealed by an anonymous communication to Scotland Yard. Tim unknown writer makes the startling claim to have committed the perfect murder at Harrogate twelve years ago. “It is, impossible to discover me.” he boasts, “ I have taken no chances.” Bearing the Charing Cross postmark, this astonishing communication is typewritten on plain paper. Scotland Yard officials at first were inclined to regard the whole thing as a stupid hoax. But investigation has substantiated the “confession” in almost every particular. IN THE RECKONING.

Staying at Harrogate for his health was a*man suffering from heart trouble, and apparently in the same hotel was the self-confessed murderer, who had gone to the place lor the express purpose of executing a reckoning with the invalid. According to his story, he was aware that as a consequence of his severe heart affection the man’s life was practically hanging by a thread, and that a sudden shock might easily bring about a fatal seizure. With this knowledge ho devised a plan to administer that shock.

THE CHOICE. Ono night, armed with a revolver, he entered "his enemy’s private loom. Pointing the weapon at the other s head, lie announced “ There is no room for two of us. One or the other has to die.” Threatening that if his victim moved or made a sound to attract attention he would blow Ids brains out, the murderer then produced two tiny packets of white powder djme up m white paper. , . , One of these, he said, contained a fatal dose of arsenic; the other chalk. u J am to give you a clumcc. 1 am going to put this stuff into t\\o glasses of water, one packet in each. Then,” he said to his victim. “ J am going to stand thorn both on the mantelpioce and you can have your choice. From a table in the room he toon two glasses of water and emptied the packets, as he had said. Then he turned to the invalid, and, flourishing the revolver in his face, ordered him to take one. Too frightened to reln.se. the man complied, drained the contents, and immediately fell to the floor -in a violent spasm. A moment later he was dead from shock. The murderer’s talk of arsenic had been bluff. There was no arsenic in the packet, only chalk. Having pocketed the tell-tale glasses, the man went downstairs and informed the hotel authorities that “his friend” had had a heart seizure. A doctor was summoned, and an incpie.st was afterwards held, when a verdict to this effect was recorded. That is the amazing story told in. the anonymous confession. The next act of the drama opens witli the police investigations. Not only has it been establishd that a deatli did take place,