FIENDISH CRUELTY

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 46, 24 February 1930, Page 9

FIENDISH CRUELTY

CREATURE ONCE A MAN

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS'- CAPTIVE

12* LOFT

LONDON, 22nd February,

A case of iicudish cruelty, even eclipsing the Mont Sevello case, is reported

from Berliu,

The police discovered a creature that once was a man, with long hair and fingers and toes resembling claws, on a farm near Frankfort on the Oder, following receipt of an anonymous letter.

The creature is fifty-five years old. His brother, a . wealthy farmer, 'kept him for twenty-five years in captivity in a back loft, the window of which was not ouly barred, but plastered up. Ho, was fed with pigwash, and when found was in the filthiest condition, utterly naked, and unable to speak an intelligible word. He resembled an ape rather than "a human being.

As his rescuers entered his prison he shrank back,, covering his face with his hands, and littered a 'series of pitiable, inarticulate sounds. He- could not Walk, and had to be carried to hospital. When fed on a dish of bread and niilk, he plunged both hands into the liasin, and tho nurses had to feed him with a spoon like a baby. What makes the crime worse is that his .mother's will specifically .allotted the wealthy brother £600 to help maintain the half-witted son.

Neither the brother's wife nor three daughters manifested the least pity for the prisoner.' Even the villagers, who were 'aware of the man's existence, had not reported the matter. The brother was arrested after he had threatened three detectives with a shotgun. . ■ The doctors say the victim has suffered so much mentally and physically from his confinement that it.is impossible that ho will ever be an intelligent human being again.

The Mont Sc-vello case' was reported on Saturday. A woman aged 30 was locked up for three years in a« small, dark cellaT, which was in an indescribably foul condition and was unheated. The unfortunate creature was clothed in' a few rags which had to be soaked in water before being cut off with a pair of scissors.. She was the merest skeleton and her hair quito grey. Her scanty; food supply was pushed through a small hole in the wall. Her parents were arrested. . . .