A terrible crime shook the Greek community of Chicago to its very foundations. Last Monday morning Philip A. Mikes, thirty-six years old, living at 2633 North Austin Avenue, shot and killed his wife Penelope, aged forty, and her eighteen-year-old daughter by a previous marriage, wounded her sixteen-year-old son and then committed suicide.

The dead man, a native of Thrace, Greece, had lived in Chicago for fifteen years and was always quiet and peace-loving. He worked in the Atlas Bank for a number of years, leaving it in 1928. He then became connected with various business firms. Two years ago he brought his sister from Greece and helped her establish herself in Chicago. Soon afterwards he married a divorcee, Mrs. Penelope Vournas, a native of Messinia, and the mother of four children. He established her and the children in a nice apartment, which was later to become the scene of a terrible tragedy.

Such a thing has never before occured in the Greek Community of Chicago.

Philip Mikes' marriage was an unfortunate one from the beginning. There was frequent quarreling, which finally resulted in Monday's tragic events.

It is believed that the cause of the tragedy was the wife's infidelity. The husband had been informed many times in the past of his wife's indiscretions and unfaithfulness. Last Saturday night, when he accused her of this, the wife responded by having him arrested. He was released after paying a twenty-dollar fine. However, his wife insisted upon having him punished by the law for accusing her of infidelity. While she and her two older children were preparing to go to the nearby police station to make another complaint, he kept pleading with her to forget it all and start a new life with the new year. She refused to heed his pleas and infuriated him to such an extent that he shot and killed her and the daughter, and wounded her son. Then he turned the gun on himself, sending a bullet through his breast.

The first husband of the dead woman deserted her four years ago because of her ill conduct.