STARVING DOCTOR.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20221, 3 February 1934, Page 31 (Supplement)

STARVING DOCTOR.

begged FOR CRUST. WIDOWS LOVE BECAME SCORN. DRAMA OF VANISHED WEALTH. A dramatic letter left by Dr. Bakker was read at the inquest on the victims of the triple shooting tragedy at Farnham, Surrey. “I have the pleasure to inform you/’ he wrote in a note to the coroner, “that to-morrow morning about 6.30 I shall shoot Mrs. Florence Wilson. Tomorrow night there is going to be a party, but they are not going to have a party . The inquest was on Mrs. Florence Jane Wilson, aged 42, a widow, proprietress of the Sunnyhurst private hotel, East Street, Farnham; Iris Wilson, aged 18, her daughter, who lived at the hotel; Dr. Gysbert Bakker, aged 44, a native of Zeist, Holland, who occupied a bedroom over the garage adjoining the hotel. The jury found that Mrs. Wilson and her daughter were murdered by . Dr. Bakker, who committed suicide while of unsound mind. Five years ago Dr. Bakker was a man of considerable wealth, with an expert knowledge of the oil industry. He had travelled in Mexico, China, Japan, the United States and Canada. Oil interests in Canada brought him his wealth, and when he arrived in England in 1928 he was able to stay at the best hotels, to keep three horses and to run a car that cost £ 1300. Three years ago a cheque for £IOO.OOO was i*pde out in his name and signed by an English peer of vast international business connections. The peer has since died. Dr. Bakker refused to accept it, pendiug adjustment. of a claim he made for payment of certain royalties. Ten days before his death the doctor, in a desperate cfFort to recoup his lost fortunes, went to London to see another financier prominently associated with the gold fields industry. He was told that the man was away. Then, a few days later, moneyless, workless, hopeless and scorned by the woman whose slave he had become, he borrowed a sporting gun. Not Wanted by Former Friends. He went back to the hotel he had substantially helped to start'—to find that he was not even wanted to join in a Christmas party. This was the climax. The giant Dutchman went to the room of Mrs. Wilson and shot her. The daughter intervened and he killed her, too. Returning to his garret, where he had neither food, fire, nor enough clothes to cover the old mattress he had borrowed, he destroj'ed himself. His last thoughts were for his three motherless children. The only tears drawn from a broken heart were when he told a friend that he could not even send them a little Christmas present. He was a bighearted, generous man. He declined to borrow the money to go back to Holland to see his children, because, he said, he could not repay it.