"UNWRITTEN LAW" CASE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18885, 6 December 1924, Page 2 (Supplement)

"UNWRITTEN LAW" CASE

WRONGED WIFE'S ACT.

HUSBAND'S LOVER KILLED.

CONFESSION AND ARREST.

SENSATION IN RUSSIA.

A crime that has few known parallels, oven in lands where tragedy haunts busy trade routes and intrigue mars everyday friendship, was lately investigated by tho Soviet law officers in Leningrad. In its chief features tho crime is another Thaw case, with the characters reversed. The beautiful Baroness Kaulbars, • a member of one of the oldest families in Russia, has confessed to tho murder of a girl of 16, Mario Selenitch, with whom her husband had fallen in love. The confession was mado .during an illness, at a time when she feared that she was about to die. Partly by reason of Lor great popularity, the accused woman has many thousands of sympathisers, and this "unwritten law" trial has created profound interest in the Russian capital and throughout the Republic. Baroness Kaulbars won her way into tho hearts of tho Russian peasant: before and during the tragic war years. Her wealth and labour were at the service of the people in their time of' sorrow and need. Her philanthropic work was well organised. It benefited .not only tho women and children left at home, but the soldiers on the great Eastern war front. She herself worked behind the lines. ' In 1917 a mild sensation was created by the nevs that this rich and beautiful woman—then a widow—had fallen in love with and married a working engineer. From Eiches to Toil. Then camo the First Revolution, followed quickly by the second, or Bolshevist, upheaval. The woman who had worked so hard to alleviate-the d'stress of• others soon found herself in distress, her funds and property lost. She went out to work as a machinist, and although her husband's employment was less curo and regular, they continued to Jive together happily. Later on, however, events took a more distressing turn. Jn one of the families with which the baroness and her husbai?d were on friendly terms was a fair-haired girl of 16 years, Marie Selenitch. More and more the husband sought this girl's company and neglected his own' .beautiful wife, and eventually ho confessed that he was in love with the girl. This was a great blow to the baroness, but she was pained still more when ho suggested tint she should divorce him, and so enable him to injury his girl friend. In vain she pleaded with him to give up his new alliance, and it was only when all lftr persuasion had failed that she consented, or pretended to consent, to his proposal ot a di.orco petition. Disappcararce of the Girl. A few days later the baroness's girl rival disappeared. Where and how she had gone was a mystery to friends and the police. She could not be traced, and the only explanation that the police could Offer when their search failed was that '■'little Marie" had fallen a victim to white slave traffickers. Search for her was abandoned, and the weeks went by without news cfencernine; her. Then Baroness Kaulbars fell ill, and for* a time the doctors doubted if she would recover. Realising her condition was serious, and baroness sent for a priest and notary, and to them, it is alleged, she confessed that she had murdered the missing girl. " .. The statement by the baroness was, in effect, that she- enticed her young rival into a shed near to her own . home and there killed her: with a club. She then rut up the body and buried it in a .garden. There the police found.the remains, and the baroness,who has now recovered from her illness, Js taking her trial on the charge of muraer. '