The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-09-24
LIQUOR BLAMED BY SOCIETY GIRL FOR
 CHUM'S ROUNDING
"Pace Too Fast and Liquor Has Driven Me Crazy,"
 Says Suicides Note
By Associated Press

New York, September 23.-Shot ana wounded three times by her former chum. who then ended her own life with bullet, Miss Mildred E. Hanan. daughter of the late Alfred P. Ha- nan, shoe manufacturer. tonight how cred between life and death in Brooklyn hospital
 With the outcome of the girls in- juries still in doubt, police took up back trail from the scene of the nocturnal tragedy into the world of high fife" blamed by Miss Hanan's assailant, Mrs. Grace Lawes, for tSe accumulated misery and heartache which impelled her to take her friends life.
 "The pace is too fast and the liqror has driven me crazy" she had writ ten in a letter addressed to her mother.
 Jealousy May Be Motive
 Still another possible motive for the deed that of jealous rave over the attentions of a man who was with Miss Hanan when the shooting oc- cured is being scrutinized by fe- tectives who are trying to clear up many unexplained points.
 For more than three hours this man, John s. Borlaud, importer anu exporter, was questioned regarding details of the affair, as well as the circumstances of his acquaintance " ith the two women.
 A further complication developed when San Francisco newspaper men reported they had located and ques- toned Mrs M E. Dittmar, to whom, calling her mother darling" Mrs. Lawes had addressed letter found among her effects.
 Mrs Dittmar at first denied any relationship and then told her ques- ticners she was q sister of the dead woman and volunteered the inf rma- ton that jealousy was not the mo tive Of the killing.
 This information was at variance with both the salutation of the ,'mother darling" letter and the con fen4s of another addressed to Mrs Birdie Williams, former nurse m the Hanan household, of which Mrs. I,awes had also been a member Tor four years.
 Make 1t easy for my darling mother" Mrs. Lawes had written in the second letter which began with A request that her body be sent home to California cremated.
 The stories of the tragedy and the events preceding it told by the in jured girl and Borland, coincided closely. With Miss Dorothy Gotts- chalk. Miss Hanan told detectives she
 |. of home in one of the most exclu i've resi- dential districts of Manhattan.
 At Il o'clock last night. she sai1' she and Borland drove Miss Gotts- chalk to her home in Sehermerhorn street, Brooklyn. where they stayed until shortly after 1 o'clock.
 We had just emerged from the vestibule when saw Mrs. Lawes step from an areaway," Miss Hanan con- tinued ''4he next thing heard three pistol shots. I dropped to the sidewalk and when I got up l saw blood running from my arm.
 q ra- for a hundred feet and col | lapsed, I then heard another shot fired"
 It was this last shot that ended the life of Mrs. Lawes. One other person witnessed the tragedy. A neighbor of Miss Gotts- chalks said she was at her window and saw Mrs. Lawes sit down on a nearby steps take & cup from her handbag drink something from IL and then dash the vessel into the gutter. Searchers later found frag- ments of the china and in the dead womans bag phial labelled with the name of a drug.
 Mrs. Lawes was related to Miss Hanan by marriage and lived with the Hanan family until two weeks ago when she moved to an apartment at the Vanderbilt hotel. She was divorced several years ago from her husband. Edgar E. Schmitt. and re- sumed her maiden name of I.aWes