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"Do Something." Next day, the coroner's inquest was held, and the sordid story came out. Only two days before Doris had died, her family physician examined her and said she appeared to be six weeks pregnant. The mother "wasn't very happy," pleaded with him to "do something about it," apparently so it would not block the divorce she hoped Doris would get. Doris' husband, the son of a well-heeled Chicago fuel dealer, later explained: "Doris' mother thought she was too good for any boy, including me."
After the family physician failed to "do something," Mrs. Silver accompanied her daughter to the two-bedroom, $40-a-month slum apartment of a bartender, Milton Schwartz and his wife, Rosalie, a hairdresser. There, the District Attorney charged, Doris was given a compound of oils, ground-up cinchona and slippery-elm bark to induce an abortion. Bits of irritating bark had reached her bloodstream and lungs, killing her.
Last week Milton and Rosalie Schwartz were arrested on an abortion charge. Mrs. Silver was also taken into custody as an accomplice. But the shock of the death—and the investigation—proved too much for her; she was temporarily committed to a mental institution. The story did not stop there. At week's end District Attorney Dash subpoenaed 19 witnesses to find out who had tried to cover up the death of Doris Oestreicher.