POISONING A MILLIONAIRE.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXVI, Issue 13522, 2 November 1911, Page 2

POISONING A MILLIONAIRE.

THE CASE OF DR. HYDE. Famous Murder Trial Re-Opened. NEW. YORK, October .28. • The new trial ordered in the. case ,of i)r. Bennett Hyde, charged- with poisoning his wife's uncle, Colonel Thomas Swope, with disease .-.germs, has commenced in Kansas City, The difficulty Hiat ■is likely .to bo experienced in empanelling the. jury is indicated by the fact that no fewer than 2000 persons have been summoned to enable the requisite number of jurors to bo selected. - THE' SWOPE MILLIONS. ■ Or. Hyde, who is reputed to be one of the best physicians in the Western States of America, was convicted nearly a y«M ago of the murder of his uncle by marriage, Colonel Swope, a multi-millionaire landowner and philanthropist, and was sentenced to bo imprisoned in the State penitentiary during the term of his natural life. Tho trial w,as one'of the, most sensational in American annals, and Mrs. Hyde, who was a niece of Colonel Swope, stuck to her husband loyally throughout, believing that the charge was unfounded, and had been engineered by vindictive members of the family.

Colonel Swope, his nephew (Chrisman Swope), and his brother-in-law, all died apparently of apoplexy, but it was alleged that Dr. Hyde, who was their medical attendant, put strychnine in their medicine in order that his wife should inherit the Swope, millions. Eight other members of the family, including Mrs. Logan Swope, and oven Mrs. Hyde, the prisoner’s wife, all became ill within a short time of each other with symptoms of typhoid fever, and as Dr. Hyde had been experimenting with typhoid germs it was alleged that lie had impregnated the patients in order to remove the whole family.

The court granted a now trial, on the. grounds that the toxicologists’ testimony was incompetent, and the finding particularly takes exception to the testimony regarding the strychnine found in Colonel Swope’s stomach,