TRAGIC TRIANGLE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 48, Issue 85, 20 January 1928, Page 2

TRAGIC TRIANGLE

WRECKED TWO WOMEN'S LIVES

THE WELLINGTON SUICIDES

(Per Press Association.)

I WELLINGTON, January 10. I More than a coincidence linked the gas poisoning tragedy at Lyall Bay when Ivy Walton and Harold Wil'soul were found dead with that at Mount Cook when Florence McMutrie was found dead. An inquest in regard to) the latter was held to-day. « Deceased, who was aged twentyseven, was found dead at 100 a, Tasman Street, on Tuesday afternoon. Deceased's father, Alexander McMutrie, a farmer of Kimbolton, said he last saw his daughter alive at Feilding four years ago. Since then he had not heard from her. Jessie Gladys Pemberton said that she had known deceased for nearly two years under the name of Flora McLean and had lived with her for 1 over a vear. When witness saw her at 9 o'clock on Monday night, she was in good health, but seemed upset. The reason for her depression, witness considered, was that she had been engaged to Harold Wilson and was to have been married this j month. Deceased told witness thai she uici noit think sue would go to work I next day. Next morning deceased's emi ployers telephonied to witness asking her if she had seen deceased. As a ' result", witness went to the house in Tasman Street, but found it locked. She called out deceased's name, but received no response. A neighbour then looked through the window and, as the result of what he saw, the police were telephoned for. Witness identified a note addressed to 'her in deceased's handwriting and was satisfied from the contents that Wilson's suicide was the , reason for deceased's taking her 1 life. Constable Hay, of Mount Cook, gave evidence of having found deceased dead on a couch in the kitchen with a gas tube near her head and a tap turned on. Gas was also escaping from a li f

bracket. "Wilson, from what we know of him, appears to have been a scoundrel," remarked the Coroner, Mi" W. G. Riddell, at the conclusion of the evidence. "He not only committed suicide himself, btnb also wrecked the lives of these two women. One can easily imagine how deceased felt ini the circumstances and one can only . say it must have been depression from which she was suffering when she found that Wilson was false to her that affected her mental condition and caused her to take her life." A verdict was returned that deceased died from gas poisoning self-administer-ed, while sufferinigi from depression.