FATEFUL TRAIL OF STOLEN DIAMOND

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5287, 27 December 1946, Page 7

FATEFUL TRAIL OF STOLEN DIAMOND

EYE OF BURMESE TDOL MANY OWNERS MEET YIOLENT DEATHS NEW YORK. The Hope Diambnd has claimed another victim. Por three centuries, since it was stolen from the eye of a Burmese idol, this "Diamond of Death" has left a trail of tragedy and ill-fortune among its unlucky owners. The latest victim is Mrs. E. McLean Reynolds, 25-year-iold daughter of Mrs. E. Wii McLean, owner of the diaoverdose of sleeping tablets. Three times has fate " struck ' at Mrs. McLean since she possessed the luckless gem. Her first child, Vinmond. She was found dead in her Washington home, where she is believed to have taken an accidental cent, was killed by a car in New York; her husband died in a mental home. Many famous people have come under its spell. The explorer Tavernier, who stole it from the idol, sold it- to Louis XIY and died a ruined man. Marie Antoinette woi*e it and was guillotined; her friend, the Princesse de Lamballe, was torn to pieces by the Paris mob. * In 1830 the diamond passed into the Hope family. Lord Francis niarried Miss May Yohe, singing star of the 'nineties. She wore it, ran away from her husband, lost her friends, saw her hotel burn to the ground, and died in poverty. The Russian Prince Kantoivslci lent the diamond to a Folies Bergere actress and shot her from a box the night she wore it. The prince himself was stabbed by revolutionists. Colot, the broker, who arranged the transaction for him, committed suicide. The next owner, a Greek jeweller, Simon Montharides, threw himself over a cliff; then came Sultan Abdul Hamid, who shot his Sultana Salma Zo-beida for wearing it and was himself deposed. Before it passed to the McLean family, yet another owner died — a Mr. Habib. He was drowned. Millionaire newspaper owner Edward McLean bought the diamond for £50,000 in 1909. Its value to-day is said to run well into six figures. It was soon after Mrs. McLean took over the diamond that her son was killed — he was run over before her eyes. Five years ago she wore the diamond — at the wedding of her daughter, now dead. Dr. B. W. Leonard, who had to s'mash her bedroom door to get in, found Mrs. Reyno-lds lying across her bed, dressed in an expensive lace nightgown, her dog Dilly asleep on the pillow beside her head, an electric heater at her feet. Her bedside radio, turned full-on, was playing her favourite dance orchestra. A'bottle of sleeping tablets lay half-empty on the table. Her mother, Mrs. Evalyn Walsh McLean, Washington's No. l.hostess, who always scoffed at the Hope Diamond legend of disaster, gave the alarm when her daughter did not answer a ring on the house telephone. From infancy, when she slept in the luxury of .a golden crib presented by King Leopold of Belgium. Svalyn McLean Reynolds had spent a bizarre life. Armed guards and chaperons kept constant watch on her. Once she was a target for kidnappers, but her guard was reinforced and she escaped.