TWO WOMEN SHOT DEAD

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 956, 26 April 1930, Page 1

TWO WOMEN SHOT DEAD

Actor's Wife Kills Friend

QUARREL OVER INVITATION

Suicide Follows The Crime

United P.A.—By Telegraph—Copyright Received 11 a.m. LAGUNA BEACH (California), Friday

| MRS. GUY BATES POST, the divorced wife of the actor, i IYI and Mrs. Doris Murray Palmer, her close friend, were found shot dead yesterday in Mrs. Palmer’s bungalow here in a tragedy which the police reconstructed as murder and y suicide resulting from a quarrel over a luncheon invitation.

The authorities asserted today that Mrs. Post was 53 years of age and was known on the stage in her youth as Adele Ritchie. She shot her friend in the back •when the latter started to go to the garage to drive off to a luncheon engagement 15 minutes after another friend had arrived with an invitation which did not include Mrs. Post. After brooding over her act for two hours; Mrs. Post, the police say, went to a business section on a shopping tour, striving to regain her calm, but returned to the bungalow some time later, placed the muzzle of the same revolver in her mouth and pulled the trigger. DIVORCE SENSATION The tragedy, which was one of the most sensational in the history of the theatrical cinema colony here, was discovered when two neighbours went to the bungalow to return a pet dog which had strayed. The police learned of the invitation quarrel from a friend who was present while the women exchanged sharp words over the non-inclusion of Mrs. Post, and heard the latter warn Mrs. Palmer against making the trip. The shot which killed Mrs. Palmer entered the back and pierced the heart, while the suicidal charge pierced the brain. The Posts were divorced in December, 1929. Mrs. Post charging desertion and the actor not contesting the suit. They had been married since 191(5 and there were no children. She had been married once before, and divorced after a sensational trial. Following her separation from Post she went to live with Mrs. Palmer, and both worked together in the Little Theatre movement.

Mrs. Palmer was the daughter of a wealthy Illinois resident and the divorced wife of a leading Minnesota physician. She was 33 years old. ACTOR NONPLUSSED Post, who has been playing in “The Masquerader” in various parts of the English-speaking world for many years, and was featured in the Australian season in 1925, is at present at Honolulu playing the same part as a guest of the Star Local Company. When informed of the tragedy he was profoundly shocked. “Oh, that is terrible; simply terrible,” he said. The actor continued: “It is all so startling to me. Mrs. Post had no enemies that 1 know of, and I cannot conceive either murder or suicide in connection with her or Mrs. Palmer.” Post referred to the reasons for his divorce as negligible,” adding that to him she would always be remembered as a “lovely, startling woman,” whom he had married when she was the toast of New York for singing and acting. “The two women had things in common and it is simply beyond me how this thing could have happened,” he added. The authorities later decided Mrs. Post's fear that she was losing the t .ose friendship of Mrs. Palmer caused the tragedy. Officials learned that Mrs. Palmer was gradually drawing away from Mrs. Post, whom the growing coolness had greatly angered. Sheriff Jernigan stated he discovered that when Mrs. Palmer failed to rush to the side of Mrs. Post when the latter was taken ill on Wednesday night at a rehearsal several witnesses heard Mrs. Post mutter: “1 could kill that woman.”