WOMAN SHOOTS DOCTOR.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18899, 27 June 1923, Page 5

WOMAN SHOOTS DOCTOR.

“BOBBED OF PERSONALITY.” STRANGE BRUSSELS CASE. Is it possible to steal a personality? MarieRose Snyers, a pretty woman, of 32, says it is, and on this account she shot Dr Hahaux, of the Rue de I’Abbaye, Brussels, whom she held responsible. A feminist of the most advanced type, she was employed as a typist in the Brussels branch of an English bank, though she had sufficient means to allow of her living in comfort without work. From an early age she had shown signs of abnormality, though her intelligence was high, and when she was 16 her mother put her under the car© of Dr Mahaux, a friend of the family. Towards the end of 1921 he persuaded his patient to enter a nursing home directed by a mental specialist who practised the method of suggestion in mental troubles. After a few days in th© home, Mile. Snyers left the place and called on Dr Mahaux in a state of excitement, saying that she could not return because tho doctor in charge persisted in advising her to do as other women and settle down with a husband. Marriage this extreme feminist considered as a disgrace to an emancipated woman. Dr Mahaux persuaded her to return to the home, but after about five weeks she left, and from then onwards she was often heard to say that things would end in misfortune and that she would kill Dx Mahaux. As a consequence Dr Mahaux had removed Mile Snyers from the list of his patients. On the evening of December 11, 1922, Marie-Rose Snyers called at Dr Mahaux's surgery as an ordinary patient. When the doctor opened the door of the waiting-room she killed him with a revolver. To a magistrate she afterwards declared: “I have killed Dr Mahaux because he had stolen my personality; because he had taken possession of my sub-conscious self; because, against my will, dominating my individuality, lie has engendered in me ideas and tendencies which are not mine.

“I have killed him. to regain possession of my own will, for which he had substituted his own. I have killed him, and yet I have not attained my end, for I feel that his wjjl still possesses me.” Mane-Rose Snycrs is now under the observation of mental specialists, whose task it is to decide whether she is sane or insane.