AN ATROCIOUS CRIME

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 2307, 27 November 1925, Page 5

AN ATROCIOUS CRIME

WOMAN THRUST INTO KILN.

The American police authorities have been engaged endeavouring to unravel one of the most atrocious crimes ever, perpetrated in the United States* a crime in which Mrs Sophie Poleski was beaten on the head with wine bottles, gagged, and almost unconscious, and then dragged into the kiln room of a timber yard, and, still alive, thrust into a blazing furnace in New York.

George Symuk, special fireman and secret woqer of Mrs Poleski, subsequently confessed to the heinous crime. He was captured by a policeman after a chase and a desperate battle. Policeman William Herrick pursued Symuk and fought him into submission.

"She was going to poison me,” the fireman told the police.

After a recent quarrel Mrs Poleski threatened to kill him, and when she took him two bottles of wine ho sus. pected that the bottles contained poieon.

Symuk is a Roumanian, 44 years old, and attended two furnaes* in one of which he is alleged to have placed the woman.

Herrick was strolling along his beat at 5. a.m. when he was startled by the screams of a woman. He walked towards the lumber yard and heard another scream. Symuk and the woman disappeared as Herrick climbed over the high wall . The policeman searched vainly and eventually the fireman reappeared. “What’s going on?” asked Herrick. “She’s gone,’ said Symuk, and before another question could be asked he ran towards the East rivex. Herrick sprint, ed after him and fired several shots from his revolver. At the docks the policeman overhauled his victim and a hand-to.liand fight ensued. Symuk almost bit off Herrick’s finger during the struggle. Other policemen hurried to the scene at the sound of the shots. They took Symuk, dazed and snarling, back to the furnace room. “There she is,” said the prisoner pointing to the furnace door.

“The police found the body amid a mass of livid flames. Her features were still recognisable, but the lower part of her body was horribly burned. Symuk confessed that he struck Mrs Poleski on the side of the head with one of the bottles, and when she screamed he lost his temper, struck her again, and then pushed her into the furnace. Mrs Poleski lived with her husband John, a waiter* and her son, Ladik. It was said that she and Symuk had been together frequently.