SHOT BY A MOTH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22421, 16 November 1934, Page 18

SHOT BY A MOTH

The case of the Princess Caravella, at Naples, is probably unique. After giving a dinner party she retired to .her room to snatch a little rest before the following dance. Very shortly afterwards she was found dead in bed, shot through the heart. Her husband was arrested on suspicion, for he was rioted for his jealous disposition, and it did not seem possible that anyone else could have been in the room. It might have gone hard with the Prince but for the shrewdness of a Naples police officer. This officer on carefully examining the bed chamber, found one of the very large moths 1 common in Italy lying on the floor with its wings badly singed by the lighted candle which bad stoivl on a bedside table. He also noticed that the pistol was lying on this table in such a position that it pointed to the Princess’s heart, and that some of the powdery dust from the moth’s wings showed plainly on the trigger. It was deduced from these signs that the ninth had burned its wings, had fallen on the table, fluttering and spinning, and that its wings had struck the lightly-sprung trigger and fired the pistol. On this evidence the Prince was acquitted.