MUTINY STORY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVI, Issue 21244, 14 January 1939, Page 15

MUTINY STORY

HAPPENINGS IN TREASURE HUNT United Press Association— By Electric Telegraph—Copyright HOLLYWOOD, January 12. An amazing story of mutiny and violence, during a South Sea treasure hunt, is being unfolded before the Federal Grand Jury. The principal witness is Captain Robert Hoffman, of the schooner Metha Nelson. The vessel left San Pedro in September, and, with a crew of amateurs, sailed to Cocos Island, where treasure was supposed to be buried. Countess Dorothy di Frasso, a well-known member of the film colony, and Marino Bello, stepfather of the late Jean Harlow, were among the treasureseekers. After w’eeks of fruitless digging, everyone lost his temper. Hoffman said the Metha Nelson became a “real hell ship.” Drunk for three days, the boatswain, Rolf Bamnan. terrorised the ship with a gun, said Hoffman. Plied with gin. and incited by two of the “guests," the crew defied the captain’s authority. “I knocked some discipline into them. I shackled some of them to stanchions,” declared Hoffman, who added that the Countess di Frasso asked him to shoot Charles Segan, one of the ringleaders, because she feared that he was planning to seize the ship, and hold her to ransom. Hoffman also revealed that he married Bello to Evelyn Husby, the ship’s nurse, a few days after the voyage began. Finally, the schooner, with a mutinous crew, was towed back to port.