WILD WOOER.

Hokitika Guardian, 6 March 1920, Page 3

WILD WOOER.

INNOCENT WIFE’S DESPAIR. AN ACCUSING HUSBAND. NEW YORK, Jan. 1. Yesterday witnessed the culmination in Cumberland, Maryland, of a domestic tragedy resembling more a melodrama than actual life. The alleged villain in the piece w’as Edgar R-yal Pownall, the handsome nephew of a rich coal and lumber merchant whose family he was visiting for four weeks. In the flat below him dwelt a happily married couple with a year-old baby, whom the Pownalls frequently visited. The beauty of the young matron, Mrs Kate Uhl, fascinated young Pownall. Last night Mervin Uhl, her husband, was urgently summoned away Ify telephone on a bogus mission. The message was ’sent, it is alleged, by Pownall*, who, according to Mrs Uhl, entered a few mniutes after the departure of her husband, locked the door, and prevented her escape. While‘she was struggling Mr Uhl returned and accused his wife of infidelity. He ordered her to leave the house. She vainly protested her innocence. Distraught, the husband himself i left the house. His wife then sum-1 ] moned Pownall, who meantime had j fled upstairs to liis uncle’s flat, and besought him to clear her reputation. , Pownall not only refused, but even ] persisted in his advances. The des- j perate young woman seized a kitchen ( knife and plunged it in her persecu- j tor’s breast. He died half an hour f later. When the police arrived they found Mrs Uhl standing beside her sleeping infant’s cot wringing her hands.