THE INTERLAKEN ASSASSIN.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 257, 3 November 1906, Page 13

THE INTERLAKEN ASSASSIN.

HISTORY OF MADAME L.EONTIEFF. Mile. Tatiana Leontieff, who murdered M. Muller at Interlaken, says Renter's Agency, was born at Warsaw in 1881. She was the only daughter of General Leontieff. who took au active part in the war in Manchuria., and was afterwards appointed governor of a p.rovince in. the South of Kussia. Mile. Leontieff went to Lausanne ia ISDO and attended the Municipal Girls' School, obtaining a university degree three years later. She was an excellent pupil, but irom the year 1000 she associated wu£> Russian refugees. She was living alone "ca pension"' at that time, and her father, hearing of the character of her companions, sent Mine. Leontiefi! to Lausanne to take charge of her. Mine. Leoutieff took her daughter to the Villa Medicis, -where they lived in good style. Mile. Leontieff studied medicine at the University of Lausanne in l'M'6 and 1004. in tiie latter year she weiit wiuii tier mother to Geneva and uueuaed the course at the university there, subsequently leaving for £r. Petersburg. Jn 1905 General Leontielx rented a house at X'etit-Lancy, near Geneva, and immediately alter his daughter returned to Lausanne under a false name and told her former professors the following story:— "1 went to the Court at St. Petersburg, and became very intimate with the lamny of General Trepolf and other families oi the nobility. in March, 1900, I went under my own name to the Hotel Bristol, in St. letersburg, taking witti mc a trunk belonging to some revolutionary friends. Tuis tiunk contained Oouibs, and a list of tne coulederated ilussian reiugees in Switzerland, .bunny the investigations made in my room explosives were lound in my workuiiSiiet, ami i was arrested at my coineur's just before starting for a Court ball, and uetained in the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul, but 1 refused to answer any questions. Au uncle on my father s side, who was Court Chainberiaiu, succeeding In getting mc treated as v lunatic, i was tneu sum up in un asylum, but thunks to viUueiice in high places, 1 was soon set at liberty. Xat once left the country, and came straight liere." Upon one of the professors remarking that she had seriously eudaugered her f;i----j ther's position, she replied; "On one side 130 millions of Russians, and ou the other my. father. I could not do ettierwtee.

One of Mile. heeutleS's former lady friends, belenging to Lausanne, states that Mile, Leoßtieff was oa intimate terms with her cousin, who committed suicide en ieaiv tag oi the discovery of tae explosives. A Renter's telegram from Geneva, states that General Leontieff, father of the murderess of M. iTullar, arrived there on Thursday from Russia. He got the lirst intimation that his daughter was the autnor of the crime from Press telegrams. General Leontieff and his wife, who did Dot share the political views of their daughter, are intensely grieved at her desperate act.