CROSS-EXAMINATION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 141, 16 June 1936, Page 8

CROSS-EXAMINATION.

DETAILED QUESTIONING. After spent-!ng the whole morning under examination by Mr. O'Leary, Dr. Giesen was subjected to close crossexamination by Mr. Meredith all yesterday afternoon and was still in the box when the Court rose for the day. | Following is the report of evidence heard after, the main edition of the " Star " | went to press:— Mr. Meredith: I understand you substantially disagree with the conclusions of Doctors Gilinour, Gunson and Ludbrook ? Witness: Yes. Do you understand that Mrs. Mareo is dead? Do you agree with them in that? —Yes. , | You could put veronal in the medicine Mrs. Mareo was taking just before her| death and you could not tell there was I veronal in it?— Yes. j

The mixture and veronal both taste bitter?— Yes.

You said that Mrs. Mareo had veronal 3n the Friday night and that if she had she must have known what she was taking?— Yes.

After a long series of questions, Dr. Giesen admitted that if Mrs. Mareo took veronal while standing at the dressing table on the Saturday morning, the veronal must have been in the bedroom and if it was there Mareo and Graham ■would have seen it. There was no place in the evidence suggesting that veronal was found in the bedroom. Freda Stark's description of Mareo's condition on the Saturday afternoon —staggering gait and slurred speech—was a condition consistent with having taken veronal. "Must" Have Been Rousing Up." "When Mrs. Mareo was able to recognise Freda Stark's voice on the Saturday night and call out to her, she must have been rousing up," continued Dr. Giesen. "Asking for water and drinking it is a sign that she had her senses about her. Her condition was consistent with the fact that the veronal was rapidly getting out of the blood-stream." .

__ The evidence that Mrs. Mareo began [ to make noises in her throat about an hour after she went to the lavatory indicated that she was strongly under the influence of veronal, witness agreed. Freda Stark tried to wake Mareo, -but failed, and this, together with his falling across the bed and then falling to sleep as eoon as he sat in the chair, wa« consistent with his having taken veronal recently. Witness agreed that the condition of Mrs. Mareo, as described by Freda Stark, was entirely different from any description - of lier condition before going to the lavatory, Mr. Meredith: Was not this change of condition consistent with Mrs. Mareo taking more veronal just before going to tho lavatory? Witness: It is certainly consistent with that. It means that more veronal was circulating in her bloodstream during the night than had been noticeable earlier.

It was also consistent, however, with the veronal having been taken earlier — 011 the Saturday morning, said witness. His opinion was that a quantity of veronal had been lying dormant in the stomach, a quantity sufficient when it went into solution in the blood, to put her into a fatal coma from which she died.