MURDER IN BERLIN

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 18069, 19 March 1923, Page 9

MURDER IN BERLIN

CRAZY LETTERS

TWO DEBASED MEN. , OLD WOMAN IS ACQUITTED. BY CABLE—PRESS ASSN,—COPYRIGHT (Received 5 p.m., March .18.) Berlin, March 18. An amazing muraer case tsi'misialed in Berlin, wherein Mestiames Klein and Refoba, aged 23 and 25 respectively, were convicted of muraenng, anti attempting to murder then 1 husbands respectively, to enable the widows to live together. Klein, owing to extenuating circumstances, was sentenced to four years, and Rebbe, mouths’ imprisonment. Klein bought arsenic on a pretence that tho house was infested with rats. Her husband died shortly afterwards. Telling' The doctors her husband -was an, habitual drunkard, she induced them to certify to death from alcoholic, poisoning'. When her house Avas searched, 500 love letters from Rebbe Avore found, disclosing tho women’-,s agreement to kill their husbands. The Berlin murder letters were written in the most extravagant terms, showing women's devotion of the ciaziest description. Such phrases as “Darling,” “My heart,” “'My only beloved,” “My pet,” were common. Once Mrs Klein wrote to Rebbe: “It is night. Klein is Avandering up and doAvn a room in and pain, so that he would like to climb a Avail. That will dot save him. I shall not loose my clutches. He will never escape my fingers. I won’t let him get well again. It was stated at the trial that both men were of brutal character and debased instincts, and drove their Avivos to the verge of insanity by ill treatment. Rebbe’s mother, a Avhite haired Avoinan, Avas acquitted on a charge of collusion.—A. and N.Z. Cable.