AN ITALIAN TRAGEDY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1065, 4 July 1912, Page 4

AN ITALIAN TRAGEDY.

Lieutenant Vicenzo Paterno was placed on trial at Rome recently for the murder of the Countess Trigona. lady-in-waiting to Queen Elena.

The crime occurred about midday on March 2nd of last year in a small room ot the Hotel Rebecchino, in Rome, where the Countess was found stabbed to death, and the lieutenant, her lover, had made a half-hearted attempt to commit suicide.

Two features of the crime made a great stir throughout the country. He stabbed her in the back with a hunting knife which he is said to have specially bought for the purpose, and systematically blackmailed her, threatening her life unless she ruined herself and her children by paying his debts. Paterno was a good officer, clever and cultured, but his private life had always been irregular. At one time he was placed for three years on the retired list of his regiment owing to the manner of his

living. It was in 1909 that he was recalled to active service, and stationed at Palermo, where he made the acquaintance of the Countess Trigona, a cultured Sicilian lady, and the wile of one of the best known Palermitan aristocrats.

The Countess Trigona appears to have been at the time a rather lonely woman, in spite of her love for her two children. Count Elia di Trigona was a man much older than his wife, whose chief pleasure was baccarat. There was very little sympathy between them, and Paterno became a welcome friend.

When the lieutenant had got the Countess into his cluches he begao blackmailing her. Litttle by little she pawned her jewellery and mortgaged her estates to provide her lover with money. Paterno revelled in his success. When her friends tried to interfere he threatened to kill them. One day he met the Count on the parade at Palermo. He buttonholed him, and said, “ I believe, Count, there is an account to be liquidated between us.” The Count replied that he knew of no account. Paterno answered : ‘‘Look me well in the eyes, Count, there is an account to be settled, and in the future there will be other accounts.

Tire friends of the Countess finally managed to persuade her to give up Pateino. The opportunity was good, as the Countess was called to Rome to do her mouth’s service as lady-in-waiting to Queen Elena. Here it was arranged that the lawyers should settle everything. But Pateruo followed her to Rome, and one night when there was a Court ball, he forced himself into the Quirinal Palace, where he reviled her and demanded more money. On March Ist the Countess met Pateruo at the Hotel Lago Maggoire to say adieu. Her lawyer was present, and on that occasion the Countess owed her fife to his presence, as' Paterno pulled out a loaded revolver, which the lawyer took from him.

The next day Paterno telephoned the Countess to meet him again on the excuse of some details to be settled. In spite ot the opposition of her friends she went to the Hotel Rebechino, when she never came out alive. Paterno stabbed her in the back three times, keeping the revolver bullet lor himselt.

His own attlempt at suicide was not serious. In a few days he was able to walk, aud then he begau to feign madness. After six months in a State lunatic asylum under careful observation, the specialists have now declared him to be sane.