MAN POISONS HIMSELF.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 106, 7 May 1929, Page 8

MAN POISONS HIMSELF.

AFTER DOZENS OF THREATS.

DOCTOR RECALLED TOO LATE. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent) CHRISTCHURCH, Monday. David Smith Dodd.s, who poisoned himself on Saturday night at his home in Lyttelton, had threatened so often to poison himself that his family had ceased to take him seriously. David Wilson Dodds told the coroner to-day that he found his father lying on the floor fully dressed except for hi-: boots, and conscious. Witness asked v:hat he wa3 doing , there, and his father replied that he was dying. Witness told hirii to get up and that there was nothing wrong with him. He said this because his father had often, while under the influence of liquor, carried on in a similar- manner... He had dozens of times threatened to commit suicide. They used to take his father's threats seriously,, but became accustomed to them. His father even used to pretend to prepare poison. He had been drinking for years, and in witness' opinion had not been sane for years. Henrietta Louisa Dodds said that when her husband became ill she asked him if he had taken poison and he said "no." She heard him say he had poisoned the food.l She could see the poison over the cake, knives and forks and in the tea. He had frequently threatened to commit Huicide during the past eight years, but on Saturday night lie kept denying that he had taken poison. Witness 'uroupht the doctor, who said he thought Dodds was only, "putting it on." The doctor left, and when called again Dodd3 died. The coroner found that Dodds died from the effects of poison, self-admin-istered while of unsound mind.