PRIMA DONNA SHOT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 81899, 4 December 1906, Page 4

PRIMA DONNA SHOT.

MURDERED BY DISCARDED LOVER. A few hours before she woud have fallen upon the stage of the Opera Comique at Carmen, stabbed to death with the dagger of the jealous Don Jose, the young and beautiful prima donna. Fraulien Rita Walter, was on the night of October 4th murdered at her home in Berlin by her discarded lover, Karl August Hesse, who then turned the weapon against himself, shot through the heart.

Hesse had waited all the afternoon at Fraulien Walter's house, expecting to surprise her in the company of his rival, Senor Juan Raventoss, a young Spanish tenor at the Opera Comique, fo.- whom the prima donr.a had lat 'terly shown a fondness, and to whom H«sse suspected that he was about to become engaged. Only for the fact that the Spaniard was lying in a hospital saved his life, dS letters left by HeS6e indicate that he intended to kill him. Fraulien Walter's mother was sitting in the adjoining room when her daughter was shot.

The singer was only twenty-one yean of age, and of remarkable beauty and promising voice. She was the daughter of a well-to-do manufac tuter. who died a few years ago. Hesse's ambition was to become an operatic star himself, but he did not possess the required talent, and thi = made him exceedingly jealous of his fiancee'* success, as well as her smile* upon other men. He had several times struck her in the midst of jealjOs fits.

Fraulien Walter attempted repeatedly to induce him to leave her and g hi? own way, but Hesse claimed to bi madly in love with her and would not be repulsed. The police found in his apartments to-day letters from hii Spanish rival wherein the latter had rejected Hesse's demand that lie should break off his relationship witli the prima donna. The murderer's parents are wealthy residents of Hamburg.