TALE OF MUTINY ON TREASURE HUNT

Southland Times, Issue 23716, 14 January 1939, Page 5

TALE OF MUTINY ON TREASURE HUNT

FRUITLESS SEARCH AT COCOS ISLAND

(Independent Cable Service)

‘ HOLLYWOOD, January 12. An amazing story of mutiny and violence during a South Sea treasure hunt is being unfolded before a federal grand jury. The principal witness is Captain Robert Hoffman, of the schooner Metha Nelson.

The vessel left San Pedro in September with a crew of amateur sailors and sailed to Cocos Island, where the treasure was supposed to be buried. Countess Dorothy di Frasso, a wellknown member of the film colony, and Mr Marino Bello, step-father of Jean Harlow, were among the treasure seekers. After weeks of fruitless digging they lost their tempers, Captain Hoffman said, and the Metha Nelson became a “real Hell ship.” Drunk for three days, the boatswain, Rolf Barrman, terrorized the ship with a gun. Plied with gin and incited by two of the “guests,” the crew defied the captain’s authority. “I knocked some discipline into them and I shackled some to the stanchions, declared Captain Hoffman, who added that the Countess di Frasso asked him to shoot Charles Segal, one of the ringleaders, because she feared that he was planning to seize the ship and hold her to ransom. , Captain Hoffman revealed that he was married to Miss Evelyn Husby, the ship’s nurse a few days after the voyage began. Finally, the schooner with the munitious crew was towed back to port.