[1][2] Born in Istanbul to a Phanariote Greek family of German and Bulgarian descent,[3] Despina married Frenchman Paul Storch when she was 17 years old.

Though they later divorced, their former marriage created a peculiar situation due to Paul's service in the French army while his ex-wife was suspected of spying for France's enemies.

They were accompanied by a German woman, Mrs. Elizabeth Charlotte Nix, and a man who purportedly was a French count named Robert de Clarmont.

[1] One factor that aroused the suspicions of the Department of Justice was that she lived a life of a very rich lady, paying $1,000 per month for her stay in a New York hotel.

The New York Sun wrote: An exquisitely carved white coffin containing the body of Madame Despina Davidovitch Storch, the most romantic spy suspect America has yet known, was placed in a vault on the east slope of Mount Olivet Cemetery, Maspeth, -Queens, yesterday afternoon.

The New York Sun wrote, "The Baron, whose infatuation for the Turkish spy suspect entangled him in the web of her intrigues, wept silently and cast a last look upon the vault as he was led back to the car."

[1] The United States Government accepted the explanation of the Baron's parents, whose loyalty to France was beyond any doubt, that their son was an innocent victim and that "any suspicion which might have been aroused came from his devotion to Madame Storch.