POSED AS A MAN.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 July 1920, Page 6

POSED AS A MAN.

ITALIAN'S MASQUERADE "MARRIED" TO A WIDOW. Sydney, July 7. An extraordinary case of a woman masquerading as a man, resembling in some respects the famous Bock case in New Zealand, has been discovered in Sydney. The person concerned, a mid-dle-aged Italian woman, who is known in New Zealand, is now in gaol on a charge of murder. This . Italian woman's maiden name was Eugene Falleni. She was born and grew to womanhood in Italy, and ther.; married a man named Martello. They soon afterwards left Italy, and, according to the police story, eventually arrived in New Zealand, where they lived for many years. Within the last five years the woman left her husband —who is thought to be still fti New Zealand—and, with her only daughter, came to Sydney. Both engaged in employment The woman, soon after arriving in Sydney, adopted male attire, and worked in various places under the name of Harry Roach, as a "generally useful. 1 ' While at Wahroonga—a suburb of Sydney—Falleni met a widow named Annie Birkett, who had a son 14 years old Falleni wooed the widow, who eventually consented to marriage. They went through the form of marriage, and lived together in Drummoyne for some months. It seems probable that Mrs. Birkett was terrorised into keeping silence about her "husband's" masquerade, but the facts of her treatment will nevar be known. She dfeappeared. Her son was employed by a local grocer, and the latter was in the habit of taking him away for lengthy periods into the country. When he returned from one such expedition in October, 1017, his mother was missing, and his "stepfather" did not satisfy the boy's curiosity as to what had become of her. They lived then in various places, frequently changing their abode, and the boy lost track of his mother's relatives.

In October, 1910, Falleni met a young Sydney woman, became friendly wilt) her, and eventually went through the form of marriage with her. In October, 1917, an employee of the Cumberland Paper Mill on the Lane Cove River, in the Drummoyne-Wahroong.i district, found a charred and decomposed body in the bush, the mill. It was badly burndß, but was recognised as«that of a middle-aged woman. The police made inquiries in vain, and the coroner returned an open verdict. But the mystery of it worried the police and they kept the case always before them. A few weeks ago Mrs. Birkett's son by accident met a relative of his mother. The la'd's story and the total disappearance of Mrs. Birkctt aroused the woman's suspicions, and she went to the police. Two detectives began to work quietly on the case. They gathered together from many likely and unlikely sources a mass of information, a 9 a result of which they visited an Annandale hotel on Monday afternoon and arrested the "generally useful"—Eugene Falleni—on a charge of murder. The woman appeared in Court on Tuesday and was remanded until July 11. She is a slight, sallow, hollow-chested person, with a remarkably smalP head and features. She was still dressed in men's clothes, and it was hard to believe she is a woman.