"THOUGH I AM DEAD."

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 257, 30 October 1929, Page 10

"THOUGH I AM DEAD."

ACCUSED'S LAST LETTER. "MY CONFESSION OF GUILT." HATRED OF MOTHER-IN-LAW. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) DUNEDIN, this day. The only fresh evidence submitted at the murder trial yesterday was the letter produced by the Crown Prosecutor, Mr. F. 13. Adams, who said Brauman had left it in a box at Invcrcargill for safe keeping. The letter read as under: — "My dear friends, —I write to you to relieve my soul of a terrible burden, by informing you that I cannot continue to tolerate this life of misery. Yet, in reading, remember that I have been unduly interfered with practically all of my married life through the cursed interference of my mother-in-law in influencing and having prejudiced my wife against me, with the result that I have lost heart, being provoked to desperation, and I now feci it impossible for me to give of my best. My home has been broken up on several occasions, and has thrown a slur against me and my children, who have had to suffer in many ways, until I can bear it no longer, and that herein, through this link of pen and paper, I stretch out my hand to you across the gulf of death. Though I "am dead, yet I am with you in this hour as you read. "My sufferings, physical and mental, are more than I can bear, and when such small arrangements as I have to make for the future well-being of my children are completed, it is my intention to put a period to them. May God forgive me if I do wrong. In the contents of you will find sufficient to prove it. I write this in my right mind, being driven to make the confession by the fact that my remorse for my intended has become intolerable. You may publish this letter to the world if you choose, since by the time it reachcs you I shall be dead.

"Forgive me this. I am an innocent man, driven to desperation, and • the •bitterness of it endureth, yet as I lay in my bed at night, restless and sleepless, thinking of past and future, as the result of that bad, wicked woman, unfortunately my mother-in-law, who has done every miserable, deceiving, contemptible thing to rob me of my wife and happiness, home comforts, together with my wife and children that I longed for. have been torn asunder, crushed with a sense of worldly ruin, of hopeless poverty, of a future absolutely without prospects, I am determined to take from her for all time what she has been determined to take from me (my wife), a life which I cherished. I fully intended to take her life also, but on second consideration death would be too good for such a curse of a woman. I fully realise that she, for the rest of her life, must live to be tortured indirectly by 'her own actions that she has shown towards me.

"A debt is a debt and has got to be paid, whether it is owed to God or to a fellow man. Confession or death, there's nothing else for it, no other relief from torture. It's got to he done, even after all these years. This should act as a warning to interfering mothers-in-law, also to'people employing married women who leave their home and children to euft'er without sufficient cause to do so.

" As regards my children, I 'hope and trust in the authorities to see that some kind and genuine mothers will take and care for them, and keep them as near to each other's company as possible. It is my dying wish that my mother-in-law shall not have access to, them, or anything to do with any arrangements concerning them in future: I am proud of them all, and want them to grow up to be? good men and women. - "I wish to give, my watch and chain, etc., and white-liandeld pocket knife to my youngest son, any other belongings to be realised on and divided equally amongst my four children. "As regards my. wife,.l hope and trust that she will receive decent burial.

"As for myself, do what you think fit with my body. The only favours I ask of you is that if, in spite of my confession "of guilt, the world should regard my actions as those of an innocent man driven insane with torture and grief.

Kindest wishes to all relatives and friends. Farewell."