AN ISLAND MYSTERY.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 January 1922, Page 5

AN ISLAND MYSTERY.

RUSSIAN BARON’S SUICIDE. Suva, Dec. 24. News comes from the Lau or Windward Group of the suicide of a recluse baron, Koster Wrede, a Russian baron, connected with some of the leading families of Russia and Finland.

Over a year ago the baron arrived in Fiji with a party of tourists, and induced them to put him ashore with some provisions and -tools on a small island named Yasaga in the southern portion of the group. Here he laboriously built himself a house, and a month or two later was found by some natives from a neighboring island in a very sick condition. The Fijians took him into their care, and nursed him back to health, but he could not be induced to stay with them, and returned to his island solitude. How he passed the time no one seems to know, but about six weeks or so ago Mr. Stewart, manager for Burns Philp (South Sea) Company, Ltd., at Lakemha, when passing Yasaga in a cutter, found Baron Wrede standing under a tree in a very bad way. He could hardly move his limbs, and was suffering from scurvy, due, it is said, to a diet of nothing but rice. He was carried on board the cutter and taken ot Mr. Stewart’s house at Lakemba. Here everything possible was done for him, and he gradually regained health and strength. He was a tall, handsome, fairhaired man, and was agreeable in manner, but very reserved.

One day the sound of a shot came from the billiard room, and on the people going into the room they found the baron dead and a discharged revolver in his band. He left a brief note simply saying he could not stand it any longer. He never gave any hint as to the cause of his craving for solitude. The people with whom he came to Fiji said he was excellently connected, but little else is known of his former history.

The Curator of Estates says he has no estate or funds in the colony. He has been the object of much speculation since he came here. When at Lakemba he said if anything happened to him he did not wish any; publicity given to his death. The case is another of those mysterious happenings of the Pacific, where so matey have sought oblivion.