“WITCH” ON TRIAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 744, 17 August 1929, Page 11

“WITCH” ON TRIAL

POISON IN LOVE POTIONS “Baba Anuschka” (“Little Mother Annie”), the 93-year-old ‘‘Witch of Vladimirovae,” in Banat, Yugoslavia, is now on trial at Pancevo. She is accused of having made a practice during many years of supplying “love potions” of fatal effect to a large number of Serbian wives, says a London exchange. “Baba” resolutely denies having had any murderous intentions. Only 10 murders are specified, but the prosecution alleges that a minimum of 50 men have been killed in 40 years by her prescriptions, which always contained arsenic. It is at the same time alleged that many wives have perished. The reputed witch, it is slated, came with her father, a rich cattle owner, from Rumania SO years ago and settled in Vladimirovae. She was well educated and learned five languages. She was considered a very beautiful girl, but when she was 21 she became associated with a young oflicer, and she was heart-broken when he left her. She then spent several years studying in seclusion, especially medical works, and afterward married a landowner named Pistov. She had 11 children, only one of whom survived. He is now a prosperous merchant. After her husbaud died she converted a wing of her country house into a laboratory, fitted like a mediaeval alchemist's cavern, supplying herbal remedies to all comers. Her chemical studies have certainly enabled her to preserve her own looks amazingly. She seems 55 at the most, and In prison she had her hair curled dally. She uses cosmetics freely.

Counsel contended in her defence that her arsenic and other deadly poisons were useful tonics and valuable medicines, and that the various wives’ carelessness was not her fault.