AN AUSTRIAN POISONER.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2713, 30 November 1889, Page 6 (Supplement)

AN AUSTRIAN POISONER.

A Vienna, correspondent writes .— " A singular case of poisoning has boon tried here this week. Last May a beardless youth of nineteen, named Hollriec'er, who followed the avocation of a cibdrivcr, formed a liaison with a woman some eighteen years his senior, employed in brickniaking. Magdalena Thoinunn, for such is the fair charmer's nann, is of Bohemian nationality, and speaks only a few words of Gorman. Her lover does not speak a word of Czechish, aud it is a wonder how they understood one another. But that difficulty did not i-tand in their way, and they soon became inuuia'uy attached. Hollriuder proposed they should marry. This obliged Magdalena to confess that she was already wedded, thiit her husband was alive, and that she had four childi-pu. Her story, as related in the act of indictment, contains details that cannot be dwelt upon. Suliice it to S'ly that she was put out to work when she was eighteen and was married at twenty-two. Magdelena ran away from her husband, but her mother compelled her to go back to him. He seems to have no objection to her conjugal irregularities, ys:t she could not marry the youth Hollveider. The latter, according to the woman's tale, eventually threw out a sinister hint to her by telling her she should see that her husband got " eotnethiiiir for hiinanlf." When she asked him to explain what she meant, her knowledge, of German being very limited, he merely observed (.hat she should see that something happened to her husband, and must see to it herself. A tew days later Magdalena, who had been sullering from nervous headaches, found out that her husband had got into debt for clriuk to the extent of sixteen florins. She reproached him with his extravngauce, which led to a bitter quarrel. She resolved ou vengeance. After waiting more than a week an oppotunity oecured to serve him some soup, in which she had mixed the phosphorus part of a box of matches. He ate half of it, and was very ill afterwards, but subsequently recovered. A secoud dose in some ell'ervcscent beverage caused his death. At the trial she eiuiovourod to throw the blame ou Hollricder, .vlio was included iu the charge of murder, suggesting that the idea of doing away with her husband would never have occurred to her had it not been for the promptings of her lover. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty in favour of Hollrieder, and expressed the opinion the state of mind of the female prisoner was such as as to require, examination by the lunacy doctors."