A STRANGE AFFAIR

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7851, 13 July 1911, Page 5

A STRANGE AFFAIR

EXPERIMENTS WITH HEATH. The strange circumstances surrounding tho death of a fashionable physician are (says the New York correspondent of the "Daily Mail” on May Ifith) engaging 1 the attention of the ablest detectives in New York, who are divided in opinion as to whether he was murdered, or committed suicide. The physician, Dr William Latsou, occupied an apartment on the ground floor of a mansion at River-side-drive. His wife hod divorced him. and he lived alone, his only regular ■visitor besides Iris patients being a beautiful Russian, girl of twenty, Mile. Alta Marhevka, who was known as his secretary. As a matter of fact, they were really teacher and pupil of a strange rystem of "esoteric psychology,” of which tho investigators have been, able to learn but little. On Friday night Mile. Marhevka called and entered the apartment by means of her private key. She remained an hour, and then emerged greatly confused, and asked the doorkeeper not to disturb the doctor, as he was indisposed. When talking she shut the self-locking door, and was left outside hatless and coatless and without her key. The porter helped her to climb through tho apartment window, and noticed that she climbed out the same way, instead of using the door. His suspicions were aroused an hour after her departure, and he called in a policeman. When the latter entered the room he saw Dn Latsou kneeling on a couch near the door, dead, with a bullet through his head. Beside him was the following note in his writing:—"l have done my best. Death.” The condition of the body showed that Dr Latsou • had been dead for several hours. Mile. Marhevka was awakened by the police at her mother's home, and said that the doctor was dead when she .arrived at his room, but, not believing in death, she had sat on the couch by the side of his body stupefied, and expecting him to awaken. "He is my Gura Godman, a perfect man,” she said calmly. "He is not dead. I have been talking just now to his spirit. He Will come to mo prosentlj r .” The girl was not arrested, but kept under surveillance. Yesterday evening she attempted suicide by gas fumes, but was rescued. When sne revived she asserted that her "godmau's” spirit had appeared, and directed her "to meet him in Samadhi, where he was happily awaiting her.” The girPs room was filled with scraps of verse and amateur philosophy, and there were also indications that Dr Latson and the girl had experimented in mesmerism. The latter evidence is greatly interesting the coroner's physician, who strenuously asserts that it was impossible for Dr Batson's wound to have been self-inflicted. Moreover, no physician intending suicide would shoot himself through the jaw, as Dr Latson is alleged to have done, and there is not the slightest evidence that he over desired, or intended to commit suicide. The police theory, based on the girl's ravings, is that she and Dr Latson, who had gradually become insane, believed that death was a delusion, and were testing their belief.