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Peter Hecht-Johanssen |
BRIDGE STAR'S GUN TRAGEDY
Expert card-player shot himself after bizarre ‘lovers’ tiff’
ONE of Europe’s top-30 bridge players shot himself through the mouth with a shotgun in front of his lover after she refused an offer of £25,000 to leave him.
Peter Hecht-Johanssen, 48, who had moved to London from his native Denmark, was drunk on whisky and earlier in the day had been visited in his Bayswater flat by his ex-wife and mother of his 15-year-old son before he tried to pay Monica Vrana to get out of his life.
Mr Hecht-Johanssen’s brother and ex-wife were in Westminster Coroner’s Court to hear Miss Vrana tell how her partner sent her upstairs to fetch a camera he had bought her as a gift following a “lovers’ tiff” sparked by the offer.
As she came down the stairs she said he was holding his shotgun “proudly” with a “funny smile” on his face.
She saw Mr Hecht-Johanssen sitting on the living room sofa. He placed the double-barrelled shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
Miss Vrana said he tried to take his life a week earlier and she removed the cartridges and hid the gun.
In the blood-splattered room, police discovered what they initially thought to be a suicide note left beside a bottle of red wine that Miss Vrana had been drinking. But on closer inspection, it was scrawled with just three words: “Just Carry On.” It emerged Miss Vrana had written the words.
She said they referred to music by Queen and added: “We had had a tiff and I wrote it for Pete. It was our favourite song. It means don’t give up on things.”
The court heard that the civil engineer had earned enough money to retire in Orme Square, where houses sell upwards of £10 million. He turned his love for bridge into a business, setting up and sponsoring the Hecht Cup.
But he had become depressed by a legal dispute. The day he shot himself, January 30 this year, he slept in until lunch time while Miss Vrana went shopping.
That afternoon, his ex-wife Gitte called round. Miss Vrana said the three of them had an amicable relationship and there was nothing unusual in her visit. When she left, Mr Hecht-Johanssen opened a bottle of whisky and became increasingly “morose”.
Miss Vrana joined him, opening a bottle of red wine at around 6pm before he made her the proposition. She told the court she was “not pleased or flattered” by the offer and they had carried on drinking. He shot himself shortly after 11pm. An air ambulance attended but Mr Hecht-Johanssen was pronounced dead at the scene.
Dr Ebba Nielsenh, his GP and friend of 27 years with whom he had been at university in Copenhagen, said Mr Hecht-Johanssen had been in denial of his drink problem and added: “He said it was nothing more than legal issues and the usual battle with solicitors but that he missed his ex-wife because she used to keep on top of those kind of things.”
Recording a verdict of death while the balance of his mind was disturbed, coroner Dr Paul Knapman said: “Here is a man who clearly had some psychological problems. Clearly he did get depressed and morose when he was drinking and he has ultimately taken his life.” |
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