GIRL'S AWFUL DISCOVERY.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 129, 2 June 1926, Page 9

GIRL'S AWFUL DISCOVERY.

A DEMENTED MOTHER. TRAGEDY IN SUBURBS. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, May 28. Not »'_ce the famous Williams case, has there been such a shocking tragedy as that discovered by a nine-year-old girl at her home in Alexandria, a suburb of Sydney, this week. Returning from a music lesson early in the morning she found the bodies of her mother and two younger sisters stretched dead in the fro_ i hall of their home in Beaconsfield Street. Obviously, the demented mother, who had been suffering from a partial nervous breakdown for some weeks, had cut the throats of her two young children, and then committed suicide with the same razor. The victims of the tragedy were Margaret Mary Wellsmore, 44,. Enid Lillian Wellsmore, aged 6 and Dorothy Ellen Wellsmore, aged 3 years. , The Wellsmore family had lived for three years in the little cottage in Beaconsfield Street, and those in the neighbourhood said they were a happy circle. The home was always neat and tidy, and the kiddies neatly dressed. But recently Mrs. Wellsmore had suffered a nervous disorder, and though her husband suggested she should go to a doctor, she refused, saying that she knew she would be all right in a few weeks' time. She seemed in average health when he left home last Friday morning, taking with him his eldest daughter Joan, aged 9, who had to attend an early music lesson. Joan returned from her lesson shortly before 9 a.m., ready to take one of her younger sisters to school with her. She opened the front door, and nearly stepped on the body of little Dorothy, which was just inside the door. Her throat had been frightfully gashed, though at the time the girl did not notice that. She saw beyond the baby the body of her mother, who, she thought had fainted and probably injured the baby as she fell. The eldest girl turned immediately and ran to a neighbour, whom she informed that her mother had fainted. The neighbour hurried back with her, but one look was enough to tell her what had occurred. Almost underneath the mother's body was that of the second girl, and her throat, as well as that of ber mother, had been cut in similar manner to the baby's. A razor, with which the deed had been done, was on the floor near by. Medical opinion is to the effect that Airs. Wellsmore was suffering a peculiar form of melarcholia, and tha.t on the morning of the tragedy her brain Just snapped, and she murdered the babies and then committed suicide. There was evidence that Enid, aged ', had hidden under one of the beds, apparently having seen her mother in the act of cutting the baby's throat. Apparently the mother dragged the child out and murdered her in the same frenzied manner. She left no note, nor had she given any indication that her tendencies were homicidal. Her husband stated that at the breakfast table, though she complained that she had been awake most of the night, she was bright and made light of her troubles. He is a labourer, employed close to his home, and was one of the „r6t to reach home after the tragedy had been discovered. The eldest girl was taken to the care of the sisters at the Catholic school at which she had been a pupil.