JIU-JITSU STRANGLING.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 90, 11 December 1912, Page 6

JIU-JITSU STRANGLING.

The extraordinary case in which an American lawyer, Mr Burton Gibson, is charged with murdering Mrs Szabo. an Austrian client, has resulted in the accused man being committed loi tiiai on the capital charge. The evidence for the prosecution culminated in a statement by Dr. Schultze, the coroner’s medical officer, who conducted the examination of the exhumed, body of Mrs Szabo. tdie met her death mysteriously while boating with the accused lawyer. “I determined,” said Dr. Schultze, the, cause of death to lie strangulation. Her throat was entirely closed. Death was caused by compression of the upper part of the neck and flooi of the mouth, the compression being administered from without.” The witness insisted that the woman was not drowned. Several witnesses were called who corroborated Mr Gibson’s statement that his client fell out of the boat when apparently trying to change places with the lawyer. One witness testified that he saw the couple plainly in the boat before the supposed accident, that the woman was leaning over the side, that the boat was rocking, and finally that both persons went overboard, but from opposide sides of the boat. Mr Gibson was accompanied throughout the hearing by his wife, who gazed affectionately into his eyes while Dr. Schultze was testifying. After tire court adjourned, Mr Gibson was seized with a mysterious illness. His wife was summoned to his cell, and for two hours the doctors attended him. Next morning he appeared in court seemingly little the worse for his indisposition. He declares that he practised compressing his own throat during incarceration, and could not discover any means of bringing about the 'result described by Dr. Schultze. He has no knowledge, he asserts, of jiu-jitsu methods.