WAS IT A DREAM?

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 52, 2 March 1929, Page 10

WAS IT A DREAM?

"DEATH" OF HER HUSBAND. WOMAN CHARGED WITH BIGAMY. VERDICT OF NOT GUILTY. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) HAMILTON, this day. A charge of bigamy was preferred in the Hamilton Supreme Court yesterday afternoon against a middle-aged woman named Annie Elizabeth Godfrey. For the Crown, Mr. H. T. Gillies appeared. Prisoner was represented by Mr. J. F. Strang. According to Mr. Gillies, prisoner, whose maiden name was Annie Elizabeth Trueman, was married to Henry Godfrey at the office of the Registrar in Wellington on January 8, 1902. After living in Wellington for five or six years with her husband, she accompanied him to Auckland, where she left him in

November. 1922. It would be shown that on September 27, 1926, she went through a form of marriage at the office of the registrar at Hamilton with a man named William Leonard Hunt. Henry Godfrey, commission agent, 12 George Street, College Hill, Auckland" gave evidence of having married his wife in 1902. He said that since she left him in 1922 he had heard nothing of her or from her until the present case arose. In evidence, prisoner admitted her second marriage with Hunt, stating that she believed her husband dead at the time. She read a notice of the death of Henry Godfrey in the "Waikato Times" i in 1924. i

Mr. Gillies: And did you not trouble to make any further inquiries about mm? Prisoner: I did not think it worth while. Mr. Gillies: And you did not even bother to ascertain whether vour husband was dead or not?— According to the state of his liver, he should have been dead long before. And you did not keep a copy of the paper containing the death notice? I did not trouble. I thought he was dead jso what was the use? (Laughter.) Are you sure you did not dream that he was dead?—No, I read the notice all right. It would have been a very pleasant dream, I suppose, if you had'? ( Lau^h(Renewed laughter?) /)[• C^V hes sai <l a search had been made of the files of the "Waikato Times." and the alleged notice had not !>een traced. After a short retirement the iurv returned a verdict of not guilty.