DRIVEN MAD BY THEFT.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VII, Issue 2143, 28 December 1920, Page 20 (Supplement)

DRIVEN MAD BY THEFT.

LOSS OF JEWELS CAUSES SUICIDE. There has been a tragic sequel to a recent Paris jjewel theft. Mile. Elsie Soubeyrand Moreville, living in Paasy, in September last was victimised by a clever and unscrupulous adventurer, who disappeared with all her jewels. The theft preyed upon the mind of Mile. Moroville. She refused to see visitqrs, and lived in constant dread of some other form of! spoliation. On October 11 the servants became alarmed. Mile. Moreville's Pekingese poodle, which was in her mistress's room, began howling and scratching at the locked door, An entrance to the room having been forced, the police found the faithful dog lying just inside the door in the last stages of exhaustion from hunger, while the woman lay dead on the floor, having apparently killed herself in a fit of madness. Mile. Moreville, it was clear, had first sought to kill herself in her bathroom. Witn a carving kuife she had attempted to open an artery in her left hand. She made several deep incisions, but only severed a vein. She tried the right aim, with no better succoss. Realising, probably after hours of intense agony, that her injuries wero not mortal, sho struggled to the bedroom. There, after having washed and bound up her lacerated arms, she cut her throat with the knife. The doctor stated that Mile. Moreville had been dead two days. The dog was given some food, and at once nestled close to its mistress's body, and had to be forcibly removed.