AMAZING ADVENTURESS

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11685, 24 November 1923, Page 14

AMAZING ADVENTURESS

STARTED AT SIXTEEN. Deported from America as an undesirable alien, and arrested on the liner Olympic on arrival at Southampton. Dorothy Emetine Greenacre, alias Geis. twenty-one, was on remand at Westminster before Mr Chapman, charged with obtaining .£125 by fraud from the Post-master-General, and with the theft of a registered postal packet containing jewellery and Treasury notes. Prosecuting for the post office, Mr Eraser said the prisoner was originally charged with forgery, but her idea of guilty to fraud and false pretences had been accepted. The prisoner, who appeared to have had a remarkable career for one so young, absconded in August, 19151. from a house where she was living with a man nt Wandsworth road, with the deposit savings bank book of her landlady’s (laugh--1 el- i

' Prisoner, a blonde, with bobbed hair, and stylishly dressed, left the dock, electing to give evidence, her account being that she acted under the direction of n man with whom she was living, of whom she went in fear.

She said that they went together to the post office to withdraw the money, although she filled in the warrnnt with the forged signature. The man 6tood behind her when it was cashed, and she handed him the money. Then he left tier, promising to meet her later, but she had never seen him since.

Detective-Sergeant Pencoclt. attached to the post office, informed the court that the prisoner was a native of Norwich, gnd aft on leaving school obtained clerical

work. She was a barmaid at sixteen, or thereabouts, and made the acquaintance of an army officer, a captain, with whom she was associated two or three They came to London, and he spent nearly .£ISOO on tho girl, til}, ho was, in fact, penniless, and finally sentenced for living on her earnings. Having got rid of this man prisoner became associated with a ship’s steward and lived with him at Kensington and Pimlico, jewellery being missed from one of the houses, where she stayed. In Mai, 1922, after being liberated on bail at Bow street, where she was charged as a disorderly person, she went back to Norwich and formed a liaison with an insurance agent, whose wife, in consequence, left him. Then she took her place, and the couple, obtaining passports in their respective names, went off to America. She preceded tho man about three weeks, he remaining for a time to sell his goods, joining her at Chicago. T-hone, she said, she was employed as a typist, and thoy lived together until February this year, when she left him.

The girl then transferred her attentions to another man, and herself stated that, she married him at Crown Point, Indiana, on March 24th this year. She liiul, when arrested, a certificate of marriage to one John Geis, junr., but there did not appear to be any witnesses. At any rate, said the officer, it did not enabln her to claim American citizenship on the ground of marriage. It npfioared that all’ along her practice had been to make the acquaintance of mci with money, and to leave them after it was spent. The magistrate asked the office-- if anv attempt been made to find thp man

whom the prisoner said was associated with her in the post office fraud. Sergeant Peacock: The last we heard of him was that he went to Australia as a steward and took his discharge at Fremantle. Our inquiries do not associate him with the foTgery, and go to show that the woman was unaccompanied when the money was paid over to her at the post office. Prisoner, who said she went to America to start a fresh life, asked that before she was sentenced some farther inquiry should be made as to the ship’s steward who had treated her badly. Mr Chapman said he would allow thit and defer sentence for a week.