AUSTRIAN BEAUTY'S FATE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 175, 11 December 1912, Page 8

AUSTRIAN BEAUTY'S FATE.

MYSTERIOUS DEATHS'AND DISAPPEARANCES. London, November 27. The trial concluded in New York tolay of Burton L. Gibson, the attorney charged with the murder of Madame Rosa Menschik Szabo, whose death in mysterious circumstances occurred in August last. • The trial, however, proved an abortive one. the jury after fifteen hours' deliberation failing to agree upon a verdict. Madame Szabo was a prettv Austrian woman, who died while out boating with Gibson on Greenwood Lake, near New York. When Gibson returned to New York lie said that Madame Szabo had met her death through drowning, and that a minister, whose name he did not disclose, struggled deliberately to save her life. Suspicion centred on Gibson when some time later he produced a will, showing that the woman had left him all her property, amounting to £20,000. The Austrian Consul became interested, and obtained an order for the exhumation of the body. An autopsy that was then made revealed that she had died of strangulation. A warrant was taken, out for Gibson's arrest, but he went to the sheriff and gave himself up. There was a suggestion that a number of other deaths of persons who had been associated with Gibson were caused by violent means, although hitherto no suspicion .attached to Gibson. The daughter of an elderly woman, whose property was in Gibson's hands, was found murdered some time ago, but the mystery was never solved. Then a witness who gave evidence at the inquest was found drowned in a shallow creek; a Wall street broker who had fought Gibson for the control of an estate was drowned from a steamboat; and John O'Neill, who successfully brought an action against Gibson concerning a mortgage, disappeared, an(i has not been heard of by his friends.