MURDER CONFESSED

Hokitika Guardian, 27 November 1933, Page 5

MURDER CONFESSED

CHICAGO SHOOTING son’s Effort to save mother. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) CHICAGO, November 24. The police have. announced that Dr Alice Wynekoop today confessed that she fired a buiiet mto the heart of her daughter-in-law, Rheta, while the flatter was unconscious. < Biteakiug down after nearly: three days’ exhausting examination,- the aged physician stated that she administered chloroform to Rheta while examining her for a pelvic pain of which the girl complained. The doctor stated that she went to her surgical office in the basement of the house last Tuesday and found Rheta partly unclad and-'weighing herself. 'Tile girl complained of severe pains. The doctor placed • her on the operating table and began administering chloroform in older to ease the pain and facilitate the examination. Her daughter-in-law finally lost consciousness and, after twenty-five minutes, the - doctor tried to revive her. Realising that the girl was losing ground the doctor became panic-strick- I en. I

"All the eents of my life flashed through my mind,” she said, "and I though of the pistol in an adjoining room.” . Fearful of being blamed for killing the girl with an anaesthetic, she said, she obtained tbe revolver and fired a shot through the shoulder blade and through the girl’s heart; n ' . The police say that the confession is so worded that it appears that the doctor wishes the murder to appear as a mercy killing, but, they declare new evidence indicates that the girl was chloroformed after the shot was fired. Another son in Peroria telegraphed to his mother: "Keep up the fight like the brave soldier you always have been. God knows you did not do this.” Before his .mother made the confession Earle Wynekoop, who also is under arrest, was confronted with his mother. He; wept and hid his face on her .shoulder, cryng: "For God’s sake, mother, if you did this, because of the. love between us go ahead and confess.” ....-■

SON’S CONFESSION REPUDIATED,

CHICAGO, November 25

The Wynekeep. case took ,an extraordinary turn to-day when Earle Wynekoop, the husband of the murdered Womatl, completely repudiated his mother’s confession and insisted that ha alono had committed the murder. ,

He was gaoled, and was charged with murder, but the police were unable to substantiate his confession. The police officers are of the opinion that this astoundng situation is the result of an unusual affection between the mother and the son, with each trying to protect the other, and with great difficulty ,in determining whic his telling the truth, if either, or both.

Wynekoop’s mother is being held without bail.

Earle Wynekoop, in his effort to prove to the police that he murdered his wife, attempted to re-act the crime, but he made so many mistakes that he was forced to repudiate his ow n confession. However, he was returned to gaol as an accomplice in. the crime.