Baronet’s Daughter Shot

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 643, 20 April 1929, Page 19

Baronet’s Daughter Shot

Suicide of Swiss Murderer

It lias now been established that Mrs. Ethel Dorothy Richardson. 26, who is reported to have been shot and seriously wounded at Nice, is the wife of Captain Alexander Cameron Richardson, formerly of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, and the youngest daughter of Sir David Lionel Goldsmid-Stern-Salomons, Bart., who died in 1925. Mrs. Richardson's assailant was a Swiss hotel-keeper, Rodolpb Auguste Lichtenherger, who afterwards committed suicide. She is in the Queen Victoria Hospital suffering from wounds in the neck. An operation to remove the bullets has been performed. According to information given by the police after their inquiry, Mrs. Richardson went to Nice at the beginning of the season, and was staying at the Hotel Beau Rivage. She was leaving a shop when she met Lichtenherger, with whom she had been previously acquainted. DEMAND FOR MONEY He told her that he had lost all hi 3 fortune and was in a very difficult financial situation. He loudly demanded money. She refused his request and he then drew- a revolver from his pocket and fired three shots at her, afterwards shooting himself. There were crowds of women shoppers about at the time. A British United Press message from Nice declares that Mrs. Richardson is alleged to have told the police: “I am separated from my husband and have travelled a great deal through Europe. I met Lichtenherger at In

terlaken, and we became very good friends. He was, however, continually asking me for money, and I finally resolved to end our friendship. That was 18 months ago, and he followed me from town to town, pleading with me to resume our friendship, until in August last I was compelled to complain to the police in Paris regarding his attentions. I have not seen him , since that time till I met him in the street. He demanded money and I refused, and he then shot me.” ! The police state that Mrs. Richardson has two children, one Yvonne, 10, being in school in Londou, and the other. Donald, 7, in school in Paris. One of Mrs. Richardson’s sisters is the wife of Sir John Harvey Blunt, Bart.. . of Tunbridge Wells, and her other sister is married to Lieut.-Colonel Edward Bryer. D.S.O. Captain and Mrs. Richardson were married in 1915, and they lived for a considerable time at Tunbridge Wells. It is believed that Mrs. Richardson’s husband is living in . England. The late Sir David Lionel Goldsmid-Stern-Salomons, Mrs. Richardson’s father, was well known as a scientist, who built what were probably the first private laboratories in England at his . Kentish home. These he filled with all kinds of wonderful machinery and weird scientific paraphernalia which, ’ upon his death, he bequeathed to his widow and afterwards to Cambridge University. > Last year Lady Salomons decided that so much valuable apparatus 5 should uot be allow’ed to remain idle, and she offered much of it to the university then. The offer was accepted. [ The title passed w r ith the death of Sir i David, whose only son was drowned while serving during the war in 1913.