May Dugas de Pallandt van Eerde

May Dugas de Pallandt van Eerde (23 May 1869 – 10 March 1937) is reputed to have earned an estimated $2 million from blackmail schemes and various business ventures during her life. She was sued by long-time friend Frank Gray Shaver for extortion and pursued by Pinkerton detectives for numerous blackmail, defrauding, and extortion incidents. She also enrolled in some university courses and studied psychology, French, and business law. and held in the San Francisco jail on charges of larceny. In 1892, San Francisco Municipal Reports identified them as fugitives from justice. One of the coroners on the case suggested that it was a matter of homicide, not suicide, and another source asserted that heartbreak over Dugas was the reason for his suicide.

Dugas herself left Tokyo after breaking with Kilpatrick, first traveling to New York. There she advertised for and hired the woman who was to become her long-time companion and accomplice, Belle (Daisy) Andrews. The Baron agreed to pay her £6000 when the deed was signed.

Life in London with Ernest Appleby

The Baroness met Ernest Appleby on a train in 1903, four years after she and the Baron separated. He made an offer of marriage that she declined, although the two began to live together as husband and wife Appleby enjoyed gambling, and he and the Baroness took several took trips together to Monte Carlo, where he was so successful that one year he won $50,000 at the gambling tables there. Appleby claimed he had only loaned her the money for this, but she said he had gifted the piece to her. The trial was adjourned due to her "sudden illness" The settlement terms were not disclosed. Lloyd's threatened to put her on the stand "to make a full statement of her life." Shaver, seeing no other recourse, sued the Baroness for extortion. National Archives ship records show the Baroness and her son traveling in the summer months to Europe during his childhood and adolescent years. John van Eerde attended Harvard and became a Professor of Romance Languages at Lehigh University. He served with distinction during World War II (as in interpreter of Italian prisoner mail for Allied Intelligence), married, had one child, and died in 2006.

Death The Baroness died in New York City on March 10, 1937. Her death certificate identified her as May de Pallandt van Eerde and the cause of death was noted as cancer. The newspaper death notice listed her as beloved wife Marie of Edward Allen Morrisey, who worked for the Zanuck Movie Company.