| Notes |
- Standard Union, Friday, August 14, 1931 News
DOCTOR, DYING, SAYS HE TRIED TO KILL HIMSELF WHEN SHOT
BROKE OPEN GUN USED BY MISS BIRDSEYE, HE TELLS GEOGHAN
Dr. Milton THOMASHEFSKY hovered between life and death in Jewish Hospital
today, the pain from a bullet in his spine eased by morphine, while District
Attorney Francis F.X. GEOGHAN disclosed the remainder of the doctor's story
of the double love tragedy which was climaxed when his secretary, Agnes
BIRDSEYE, shot him and killed herself in his office at 135 Eastern Parkway.
"Dr. THOMASHEFSKY told me," the prosecutor said, "that it was he who broke
open the pistol found in Miss BIRDSEYE's hand."
Mr. GEOGHAN quoted the doctor as whispering:
"I knew I had been shot in the spine. I opened the gun to see how many
bullets were left. I wanted to finish the job."
Meanwhile the other woman in the triangle, Norma Jean BERNSTEIN, whose
interest in the doctor inspired Miss BIRDSEYE to prevent a marriage by
violence, was in Manhattan, ready for questioning.
She hurried back last night from the Adirondack camp where she was
spending the summer. She was to be questioned in Brooklyn Police Headquarters
this afternoon.
Dr. THOMASHEFSKY himself, propped up on a cot in Jewish Hospital, where
Miss BIRDSEYE"S father is Assistant Superintendent, told his story of the
tragedy.
Miss BIRDSEYE had been employed by Dr. THOMASHEFSKY for seven years. To
him she was "Boo Boo," friends said, and he was "Mickey" to her. Dr.
THOMASHEFSKY was introduced to Miss BERNSTEIN two months ago, and from that
moment, he said, Miss BIRDSEYE had shown increasing jealousy.
She sent him, first, an anonymous letter, attacking Miss BERNSTEIN at
Point 'O Woods Camp in the Adirondacks where she was spending the summer as
hostess and counselor.
She wrote him a reply defending herself and denouncing the writer of the
letter, whose identity, she wrote, she could easily guess.
Miss BIRDSEYE, seeing this measure was futile, then took another step to
express her anger. Monday night in Dr. THOMASHEFSKY's office, he said, she
chloroformed him while he slept, and began a crude operation which she left
unfinished.
SAYS GIRL CONFESSED
When Dr. THOMASHEFSKY awoke Tuesday morning to find himself superficially
mutilated, he found also a note, pencilled on a piece of newspaper pinned to
his door. It was addressed to "Harry," and read, "This will even an old
score." Harry was the name of Dr. THOMASHEFSKY"s brother.
The doctor suspected it was put there to mislead him, and on Wednesday, he
said, he accused Miss BIRDSEYE of the mutilation and the letter, and she
confessed.
That was but a short time before the shooting. Angrily the doctor told the
girl she was dismissed, that there could never be anything between them.
But Miss BIRDSEYE, torn by anguish, refused tomlisten, the doctor said,
and spoke again of marriage.
At this moment the office bell rang, and as the doctor walked toward the
door the girl ran to a desk, he said, drew out a pistol and fired at his
back.
As he whirled about and fell, he said, she placed the gun against her
abdomen, fired a second shot, then raised it to her head and fired again.
Miss BIRDSEYE died instantly. The doctor was writhing on the floor near
her body when the caller, PINES, entered with the building superintendent.
Despite Dr. THOMASHEFSKY's story, Miss BIRDSEYE's father, Lewis BIRDSEYE,
prominent in Republican politics and a former secretary of the Police
Department, insisted last night his daughter had not shot the doctor or
herself.
"Agnes," he said, "did not do this. I know it and I will get to the bottom
of it."
Part of the physician's statement was withheld by police, and there was at
least one indication that the argument which preceded the shooting was longer
than he had said. There was the fact that Miss BIRDSEYE had a black eye when
she was found and the office was in general disorder.
A half hour before she had telephoned her sister Florence at their home,
249 A Brooklyn avenue. She said "something terrible has happened," and
promised to tell more about it when she returned for dinner.
Miss BERNSTEIN, daughter of Sidney J. BERNSTEIN, an attorney of 334 West
Eighty-sixth street hurried back from the camp to New York last night, and
was questioned briefly by the investigators at Brooklyn Police Headquarters.
She left, promising to return today.
LOVE HOPELESS
The letter she wrote Dr. THOMASHEFSKY referring to the anonymous attack
was found in his coat pocket. It began: "Dear, darling Mickey," and closed::
"Oh, did I remember to tell you dear, darling Mickey, that I miss you so
much?"
But Dr. THOMASHEFSKY, hovering between life and death, told questioners at
the hospital there had never been anything more between them than friendship.
As to Miss BIRDSEYE, he said he had taken her to the theatre and to dinner
occasionally, and conceded her infatuation for him, but added he had always
told her it was hopeless.
Miss BERNSTEIN studied art in Paris two years. She is twenty-four. Dr.
THOMASHEFSKY is the son of Boris and Bessie THOMASHEFSKY, famous on the
Yiddish stage. He was thirty-four and had never been married.
Transcribed for the Brooklyn Information Pages by Mary Musco
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Our Family History
1897 - 1936 (39 years)
d. 9 Jul 1939, Beth Israel Hospital, New York