EXTRAORDINARY ICRIME.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9400, 22 March 1909, Page 3

EXTRAORDINARY ICRIME.

SCHOOLGIRL MURDERED. AN INFATUATED RUSSIAN. * An extraordinary crime is reported in-tbe San Francisco papers, just to hand. While on her way to school on February 13th a 10-yearrold girl, Dorothy Malakanofl, was shot and almost instantly killed •by Demetri Treshenko, a Russian, and a rejected •suitor; 48 years of age. The girl fell tortbe ground as two bullets tore into her breast, her school hooks falling from her arms around the 'body. She expired without an outcry!, The murderer then turned the .revolver j upon himself, 'and drove a bullet into the left side of his head. The murder came as a tragic end to a persistent effort on Treshenko’s part -,to win toe littl girl’s love and persuade her to elope with him. The man’s attentions to the young schoolgirl were discouraged by her parents, and on one occasion the Russian was forced by the police to leave the neighbourhood. Treshenko was standing on the corner when the girl. came along Potrero Avenue, fending himself from the nouring xain with an umbrella. As the child neared him he stepped forward, and placed ' the' umbrella over her, shutting off the two from the gaze of ;tbe bystanders. He bent down and asked her again if she would leave with him. The child shook her head, and told him to let her go, as she would, be late at school. Treshenko then .thrust an arm around her and with the other drew a revolver, and placed it against the child’s back, while she struggled to free herselr. The girl fell to the sidewalk with a bullet lodged near the heart and anotqer in the lungs. Treshenko stood a moment looking at her, and then placed the revolver against his head, driving a bullet through the skull. He fell to the walk beside the girl. Treshenko often, took the little schoolgirl whom be murdered about town, before her parents forced him to discontinue his attentions to her, and went several times with the child to Priest’s photograph gallery in Mission Street, where pictures of the two were made separately and together, with Treshenko’s arm about the girl.