HOTEL TRIPLE TRAGEDY.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 192, 15 August 1925, Page 23

HOTEL TRIPLE TRAGEDY.

DOUBLE MURDER AND SUICIDE BY MALARIA VICTIM. The coroner's Inquiry Into the triple tragedy which occurred at the Bramlelga Hotel, Lelgham Court Road, Streatham, resulted In the Jury returning a verdict that Mr. Jamea Carly (aged 63), the proprietor of the hotel, and his wife, Emily Carly (aged 52), were murdered by Stafford Gordon Dryden (aged 85), Mr. Oarly'i partner, and that Dryden then committed suicide while of unsound mind. Evidence was given that Dryden, a native of NataL who won the Military Cross during the war, was subject to attacks of malaria, and drank to excess, and that the hotel business was in financial difficulties. The coroner advanced the theory that Dryden was overpowered by an "irresistible impulse" under which he killed Mr. and Mrs. Carly in circumstances of "brutal atrocity."

At the last hearing evidence was given to the effect that although the real proprietor of the hotel was Mr. Carly, Dryden, who wa» known to the guests as Mr. Dryden Carly, had pushed him Into the background. A young woman relative of the Carlys said Dryden had been very friendly with Mrs. Carly, but that this affection had cooled off. She spoke of Dryden's recent violent outbursts of temper.

A detective-Inspector said that Dryden served in Royston's Horse in the Natal Rebellion. In November, 1914, he was in East Africa, where he was believed to have contracted malaria of a virulent type. He was also drinking heavily. On one occasion he nearly killed a Kaffir servant in an insane rage. Later he left South Africa for England as a lieutenant, and during the voyage had a quarrel with an officer of the East Lancashire Regiment, and if other officers had not interfered Dryden would almost certainly have thrown the officer overboard. Dryden appeared tjo be short of money most of his time and! had no banking account. He had been drinking heavily since the war. The hotel was well conducted, and might have had a prospect of success with more capital, and If Dryden had done profitable work. It seemed that he was merely an expense, and had no money of his own.

The coroner, in summing np, said there was not a scintilla of evidence that there was any immoral relationship between Dryden and Mrs. Carly. It seemed strange, however, that Dryden, who was In a state of chonic lmpecunlosity, was living with the Carlys and upon them.