SOCIETY KLEPTOMANIAC.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 2316, 16 August 1921, Page 4

SOCIETY KLEPTOMANIAC.

“A MYSTERIOUS FORCE.’’

PROCEEDS GO TO CHARITY,

‘‘When I stood before the jewellers’ window and saw the glittering jewels, a mysterious, irresistible

force drove me into the shop to deal.” Such was the only excuse vhich could be given by a wealthy •'ocietv kleptomaniac, who was defendant in an amazing ease before the Berlin Court.

Defendant, Frau Liesbeth Strick, belongs to a rich provincial family. She is highly educated, and frequented the best society in the capital and elsewhere. Three years ago she committed a number of thefts in Berlin and Dresden. She visited high-class shops, where her perfect manners and fine clothes disarmed suspicion.

Giving herself out as the Countess Baudissin, or Baronesd von Stork, she asked to see expensive jewels, and while examining them she would steal some. She then went to the next jeweller’s shop, sold what she had stolen, and with the money thus obtained would generally buy expensive toilet and dress articles.

When her thefts were eventually discovered she frankly confessed, being able, she said, to give no other excuse than that she was the victim of some mysterious power, and’ could not control herself. As a very wealthy woman she had no need to resort to theft to obtain such things. MEDICAL EXPERT’S VIEW.

Since the discovery of the thefts in 1918 she has been under the observation of numerous medical experts. One of them declared at the trial that she was at one lime enthusiastic about founding a home for the blind, and that she resorted to thefts in order to secure the necessary funds. He was convinced that the state of her mind was such that she was quite unaware of having done wrong, and was surprised to hear her actions described as theft. . '

Another doctor gave what he called “a picture of her soul,” and said she had a curious psychic lack. She was wholly unconscious of wrongdoing, and made no effort to conceal what she had done. The family doctor .-aid that in her youth she suffered from “soul phantasies,” and lie believed she had “ a degenerate psychopalhulogicai constitution.” Two years ago, after committing the thefts, she married a high official, is perfectly happy, and has a child who is in every way normal. Strange to relate, her own mental abnormality quite vanished after marriage.

The Court gave a verdict of acquittal.