GARAGE DEATHS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 185, 6 August 1932, Page 3 (Supplement)

GARAGE DEATHS.

MAN AND WIFE DIE. Verdicts of death from misadventure from carbon monoxide poisoning were returned at the inquest at Merstham, Surrey, on Mr. George Herbert Freeman, a solicitor, aged 51, of Elm Park Gardens, Chelsea, and Bedford Row, High Holborn, and Charlotte Marguerite Freeman, aged 39, his wife. Mr. and Mrs. Freeman were found dead beside their car in the garage at Tollswortli Manor, an old farmhouse at Chaldon, near Caterham, where they spent week-ends. Miss Mirian d'Avigdor said she was the only daughter of Mrs. Freeman by her first marraige. She stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Freeman at Hove for a holiday. They left, saying they were going to Tollsworth

on business, and would see her the next day. In reply to a solicitor who said there was a policy on Mr. Freeman's life for £3000, payable on death before May 6, 1936, Miss d'Avigdor said Mr. Freeman had been in bad health, but was getting better. He suffered concussion in a car accident in February. Mr. Frederick Rogers Goodwin, of Cornwall Gardens, Kensington, said when Mr. and Mrs. Freeman did not return home he went to Tollsworth and found them dead in the garage, the door of which was partly open. Mr. Freeman lay at the back of the car, and Mrs. Freeman had her arm under him as if ehe had tried to lift him and collapsed. Inspector Rendell, of Caterham, said the garage was a converted cartshed —the most air-tight cartshed he had ever seen. Dr. Walter "Weir, of Merstham, said death in each case was due to carbon monoxide poisoning. Mr. T. T. Davis (for the relatives): Was the position of Mrs. Freeman consistent with her having tried to help her husband and been overcome in doing so?— Yes. Mr. E. Lovell Hewitt, the coroner, said in his opinion there was no foundation for any suggestion of suicide, and a verdict as above was returned.