Death in Dehra Dun

Elizabeth Bennett's parents were United Presbyterian missionaries in the Punjab 46 years ago, when she was born. Elizabeth herself was sent to school in the U.S. when she was nine, grew up to become a high-school teacher in Haddonfield, N.J. But she never forgot her missionary childhood. After her husband died two years ago, she decided to go back to India. She got a job teaching in a school at Mussoorie, 100 miles north of New Delhi, and fortnight ago she sent a note to her mother in the U.S. saying how much she enjoyed being back. Then, one day last week, she accepted an invitation to stay overnight in nearby Dehra Dun with Mrs. Herbert Strickler, 59, wife of the executive secretary of Presbyterian missions in India.

Next morning Elizabeth Bennett was found beaten to death in her bed. In her own room was the body of Mrs. Strickler, who had been stabbed. There had been no recent religious or political troubles in Dehra Dun. Death came to Elizabeth Bennett and Martha Strickler, not in the missionary's tradition of martyrdom or persecution but through the brutal, almost random act of a thieving intruder.

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