The San Francisco call., 1910-10-06
BROKEN Pledge
TO MARRY HAS
TRAGIC RESULT
Effie Wilson Tells of Elopement
With Guido Barsi, Whom
She Shot Dead
Betrayer Tries to Protect Slayer,
Who Pleads ''They Can't
Blame Me Much"
By MARY ASHE MILLER

"Efie Wilson-murder" is the record
at the city prison in that dreadful
great book, full of tabloid histories
Of crime, woe. misery and all manner
Of wrong doing.
But back Of the unadorned three
word entry lies. according to Efie
Wilson, the plot for a melodrama OF
1ntensest sort-the simple, little con-
vent bred, country girl, the handsome.
1ovable, unprincipIed youth from the
city, the elopement under a. promise OF
marriage which was never fulfilled. the
attempt to force the girl to life of
shame. i'll treatment, finally desertion.
then Jealousy, and the villain gets his
due.
Thus far the melodraua goes we'll
but in real life 1t is sadly tangled from
this point
GIRL NERVOUS WRECK
Poor little Efie Wilson lust 10 wears
old. is nervous. twftching wreck.
filled with horror at one moment for
what she has done. crying that she
really didn't know what she was doing.
that she loved him SO and he left her.
and then declaring with stony ewes
that she couldn't help it, he drove her
to it
One moment she is helpless, fright
ened child, the next an odd little strain
of something like shrewdness creeps
in and she repeats, parrot like, some
of the things her advisers have told
her to say.
About midnight Tuesday Efie Wilson
shot her lover, Guido Barsi. who was
% years old. in Kearny street. opposite
the low lodging house where she lived.
He died an hour or two later at the
central emergency hospital, trying
with a faint spark of that manhood
which had apparently deserted him in
the full strength of life, to protect her
at the last. She has no denials to offer
however, of the fact that she shot him.
Her word contradicts the dying state
ment of Barsi that some one else ended
his life.
STORY TOLD BY GIRL
few months ago she was living
in San Bautista, Tex, with her
mother, a widow. She had been out
of the convent about a year Then
Barsi appeared, she says, with money
enough to dazzle trife and they met
through mutual friends.
He was very good looking" she
says of him, ''and he had such pleasant
ways. He was there for, quite a while.
long enough for me to fall in love with
him"
This rather vague statement as to
the period of residence required she
made more definite by saying, "A few
weeks. I think"
Her father was musician, she saws,
the director of a. conservatory Of music
in San Antonio. He came from Ire
land, and she says with faint flicker
of pride, even in the midst of her dis
tress, that her people were "a good
family"
She has every appearance of being
an educated and refined girl. Her voice
is soft with correctness of intona-
tion and pronunciation. Her hands and
feet are tiny. She has big soft, dog
like brown eyes, and the little. yield
ing, lovable chin that has ever pointed
to woe for womankind.
PROMISE OF MARRIAGE
Already. though, something of the
marks of the life she has been plunged
into are there. Neatly enough garbed,
she has her hair dressed in the dread
full matted roll, low on her neck, so in
dicative of the Barbary coast girl, and
on her smooth young cheeks were
streaks of rouge, not all washed off by
her tears.
She says of Barsi: HE made me
elope with him. He said we would be
married right away. had been good
girl and 1 believed him. When we