A PRUSSIAN OFFICER SHOOTS HIS CRAZY WIFE AND KILLS HIMSELF.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 67, 8 July 1876, Page 3

A PRUSSIAN OFFICER SHOOTS HIS CRAZY WIFE AND KILLS HIMSELF.

A High rank officer first .»!>•* b'» «>"- nx-iited* wife and afterwards »'•.-;..:!»;: u-i suicide. The motives which led to the tragedy were hit absorbing Wv« for his wife, who sintered terribly from the combined etleeta of disease and drags, and his desire to reli*,--.*,- her from agony and die with Iter. The above (says the " Tageblatt) is the short and dry way in which the police authorities sp'-ak of a dreadful and strange tragedy which oveurrcd la.-tt week. The scene- of the bloody affair was 5 in Benin. The oilicer is Colonel V. Sodermtcxu, Chief of the Department of Invalid Oilkers of the War Department. lie commuted thtr act about midnight, and in a letter to his superior ofcfteer, Major General Regan, lie details the reasons which let! to the deed. He said that hit* wife, wiilie insane, took poison, which eanaed her the most terrible sntfering. Shv begged him. for more poison. After a dreadful mental struggle he determined to give it to her to assuage her torture. -She took it, but not even then did death come to her relief. Her sttttferingsr were only intensified. Then, agonized by the picture of her agony, he determined to end her-misery- He drew hia revolver and shot her dead. He would join her, and he begged hi* superior officers to bury him alongside of his "best beloved."

The fntieral of the colonel took place on March IS, and was attended I>y the Berlin military. He was buried with the highest mihtarj honors. But at the funeral the strange announcement was made that the man had not kilted his wife, but only himsetf. A post-mortem examination revealed beyond doubt that she was dead when he tired the revolver. This wa3 established by several facts, one of which was that the bullet-wound was perfectly round, with no ragged edges, and not a drop of blood had been shed externally or internally.