August 6, 1917

WOMAN HINTS AT MURDER

Telephones Coroner's Office Louis Bustanoby Poisoned

A woman called the coroner's office last night and told Jacob Anekstein, the coroner's clerk, that she knew Louis Bustanoby, the restaurateur, who died on Saturday in his restaurant, 80 West Fortieth Street, had been killed by slow poisoning.

Anekstein asked her who she was. She replied that she was Mr. Bustanoby's sister-in-law and hung up the telephone receiver. Anekstein traced the call to a public booth in a drugstore at 180th Street and Broadway. Coroner Hellenstein was told of the mysterious call, and he asked the detective bureau to make an investigation.

Later the coroner said that Mr. Bustanoby had been sick for six years and had been attended by some of the best physicians in New York, and that they had reported that Mr. Bustanoby had died of natural causes. He intimated that no attention would be paid to the woman's request for an autopsy.