The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-12-21
VeiI SIoz0ly Lifts O. Island Eden
 Drama OF LOUg, Hnte A7ld Death
Bodies on Beach Spur
 Search for Key to Pacific Mystery
BY NEA SERVICE

BY NEA SERVICE
 Up from the Galapagos Islands. which lie baking stolidly under the equtorial sun 500 miles west of
 Ecuador in the Pacific, come drift ing piecemeal the details of strange story of jealousy, violence, and death in an island Eden. The finding. by chance call of a tuna fishing boat of two bodies on the beach of barren Marchena Is- land set the stage for revelation of drama, all the acts of which are, not yet knowT that looks unbe- lieveably lurid and melodra matic. Searchers, chief omong them Capt G. Allan Hancock, Los An geles capitalist and scientist, now in the islands, and Capt William Borthen of the fishing schooner which found the bodies, are trying to piece together the fragments of this tale of a lost Eden. As de- veloped to date, here are the acts of the tragedy:
 Two years or more ago a strange expedition came to Charles Island,
 one of the dozen or so which make up the Galapagos group. There are few more remote and God-forgot- ten spots on earth than these is- lands, which belong to Ecuador, but which are seldom visited by hu- man beings except when explorers like William Beebe, Col Theodore
 Roosevelt, William K. Vanderbilt, of Vincent Astor touch there as an adventure.
 Others in Their 'Paradise' #r
 Yet when the three newcomers landed on Charles Island, they
 found it already occupied by two couples intent on nding a para disc far from the world. There
 were Arthur Wittmer and his wife
 Margaret, nudists living with their two children in a fantastic house |contrived of native stone and sheet zinc. And there were also Dr Karl | who had left behind their. respec- l tive mates to seek new paradise. The newcomers were moreoddly assorted than that. There was the Baroness Eloise Bosquet de Wag-
 ner Wehrborn, once of the gay life 1 of Viennt and Paris salons. There
 was slight, unimpressive Alfred
 Rudolph Lorenz, her lover and her
 business partner when they ran a
 dress shop in Paris. And there was
 Robert Philippson, just good
 friend of both the others. l Baroness Takes Command l So here were the makers Of modern Eden. But the old residents
 were soon scandalized by the go- ings-on of the new candidates for
 bliss. On this island of nudism and unfretted freedom, they were
 shocked at the baroness traipsing
 about the island in costume that
 consisted mostly of a large pearl-
 handled revolver.
 Cordial with Parisian savior
 faire to the infrequent explorers
 who put in at Charles Island, there
 were rumors that the baroness was
 domineering by nature, and had inn threatened the occasional natives who from time to time visited the
 island.
 | In so far as there can be gossip
 and political intrigue on an island
 with only ten inha bitants, they pointed to ambitions of the baron-
 ess to become empress of a south sea domain.
 l h6uC OOLuCS tO TLSACu ] She began to dominate Lorenz,
 who had been her partner and
 lover, reducing him to A sort of
 dish washer and general menial in
 the scheme of things. As time
 passed, she showed an increasing preference for Philippson. | It was a very old story of two
 men and a woman, the only diff
 ference being that it worked out
 somewhat more savagely under
 primitive candidates than in the
 well-lost Vienna or Paris. Several
 savage fights between Lorenz and
 Philippson varied the tedlum of | life on Charles Island.
 | In fact, Norwegian sailor who
 called there and talked with Lorenz
 wrote a letter in which he said
 Lorenz told him they fought with
 hands, clubs, and rocks for the one
 time noblewoman, while she stood on the sidelines and egged on the cambatants with thrilled enthusi- asm.
 .Lorenz, being slight, and none too-healthy man, came off second | best in all these encounters. Once
 he left the love nest and stayed