GHASTLY CRIME.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 935, 4 December 1933, Page 5

GHASTLY CRIME.

Rejected Suitor Infects Girl With Bacilli. THEN COMMITS SUICIDE. LONDON, October 24. How a photographer employed at the General Hospital in Vienna in- ; fected a girl who resented his wooing , ! with bacilli stolen from the patholo- j I gical institute before killing himself by gas poisoning was disclosed by the J chief of the Vienna police, whose j analysts have placed this crime beyond . doubt. . ! Felix Fiala, aged 32, was found dead ■ ,j in the pathological institute on Sep- j ’ j tember 4, having remained overnight j 1 ; to develop plates. 1 Beside his body was a note to the j ; police stating that he had committed ; : -suicide because he was in desperate ! [ financial straits. But this statement ! : proved untrue, for Fiala lived with his | : mother, earned plenty of money, and : 1 had no debts. ' ; Berta Grubauer, aged 28, a typist at | • j the pathological institute, was taken j 1 | to hospital suffering from a mixture j ;of typhus and paratyphus, and the j ■ I doctors state that the infection was j I i undoubtedly from mixed bacilli. J • Berta, who is betrothed to another ' man, told the doctors that she re- : members Fiala bringing her bread and ! butter at 30 a.m. on Friday, September I—a usual custom in Vienna offices, . where work always starts early and the i i first “ breakfast ” is merely coffee. I , She found a note from Fiala when j she arrived at work on Monday, j • September 4. ; It concluded —“ Look in the labora- j tory.” Berta went to the laboratory j ; | with the house porter, and found Fiala : - dead with a gas tube in his mouth. Berta is now dangerously ill and • incapable of undergoing a police ex- - amination. Bacilli stocktaking is proi ceeding at the institute for the purpose : of ascertaining whence Fiala stole the I cultures.