SON’S CRIME FOR LOVE

Shannon News, 10 July 1928, Page 4

SON’S CRIME FOR LOVE

SICE MOTHER - POISONED. -

REMARKABLE GERMAN CASH

A remarkable case of matricide from motives of charity has set the Berlin criminal courts a difficult problem. The woman was suffering from an affection of the heart, with grave complications, and Avas discharged from one of the leading hospitals as incurable. For months she lingered on at homo, suffering agonies of pain Avhieb made sleep almost impossible, and there came a time Avhen she could not savwlloav a particle of nourishment, so that she was threatened by death from starvation. 1 The son and daughter of the' worn;*..

nursed her devotedly, sitting up niglit after night at her bedside, and during those weary vigils she repeatedly implored them to put jin end to her intolerable and hopeless sufferings. Early qne morning in June, 1925, after a sleepless night passed with his mother, the son decided to release her from her iormeuts. As ah apprentice to a dentist, lie had access, to poisons, and he gave t'he unhappy woman an overdose of a soporific dissolved in a glass of water. After drinking this she tranquilly fell dsleep and passed away. In spite of trio benevolence of his motive, AA’liich is nor questioned, the fact preyed upon his mind, and some time back he attempted suicide.

: It is characteristic of the case tha» this act Avas attributed by the son’§ relations and friends to grief at the death of his mother, whom he was knoAvn to love devotedly. The • true, reason Avas disclosed only a few weeks qgo when the gossip of servants brought suspicion on the young man, who is iioav only 2d. He was examined by flie police, and without a moment’s hesitation admitted what he had done. Ue will be tried for murder but, as ijs very unusual in connection with capital* charges, it Avas ordered that he He left at liberty until the hearing.