MANIAC’S WEIRD LOVE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21539, 11 January 1932, Page 2

MANIAC’S WEIRD LOVE

WAX FIGURE OF SLAIN BEAUTY FRENZIED ATTACK ON WIFE. Profound sensation has been_ created among all classes in the Hungarian capita] by a weird drama which was recently enacted in the famous Budapest panopticon of moving and breathing wax figures. It centres around Alexander Ladanya, a retired army officer, who seriously wounded his wife because he had fallen desperately in love with a perfectly-shaped wax statue of the murdered Kathann Felner, a well-known beauty. Nothing could be stranger than the story behind this desperate deed (says the News of the World). Lieutenant Alexander Ladanya lived, until the outbreak of the Great War. in perfect harmony with his young and pretty wife, who belonged to a good family. In the first days of the war Ladanya went to the front, where he received a wound in the head from a fragment of a shell, and he was invalided out of the army. _ His health grew worse and worse, until he began to lose bis memory. The young wife was obliged to_ hire a nurse, but, owing to financial difficulties, she was soon dismissed. _ The unfortunate officer spent his days either at his home or walking in the streets and parks. Latterly, however, his condition became somewhat better, so that at moments he was able to recognise his wife and child and to speak occasionally with them. A TERRIBLE DISCOVERY. Nevertheless, the unfortunate woman was growing more and more anxious about her husband, as he began coming home very late at night, sometimes even in the morning. If she asked where he had been. Ladanya was unable to explain, and her anxiety went on increasing. . One day the wife learnt from a friend of his that her husband very frequently visited the panopticon, as he was in love with the wax figures of Katharin Felner, who, not long ago, had been brutally murdered. That friend told her that her husband would stand in front of the wax figure for hours, admiring it and speaking to it words of tender love. The wife was amazed at hearing this, and decided to spy on her husband in order to convince herself of the terrible truth. One day she followed him furtively, and she was there to watch the unusual scene. As soon as the husband came to the wax figure he began whispering tender words to Katharin Felner and to caress the wax figure. Suddenly lie turned round, and, seeing his wife there, became infuriated. He drew out a dagger and cried: “You must die. because you are in the way of our love! ” TWO THRUSTS WITH A DAGGER. The demented man turned again to the figure and continued his love-making. Then he said to his wife: “She does not consent to marry me, unless you give me a divorce.” At that moment he rushed at his wife and struck her twice with the dagger. There was a cry and then a thud! While the woman lay bleeding her husband peacefully went back to the figure and caressed it. The attendants of the panopticon ran to the rescue of the woman and took her to hospital, where the surgeons dressed her wounds. The husband was taken to the police station, where he cried indignantly: “Why did they take me away from my fiancee? He was then removed to n mental hospital as incurable.