GIRL'S DEATH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 263, 5 November 1937, Page 11

GIRL'S DEATH.

WHENUAPAI AFFAIR. COMMENT BY CORONER. MARRIED MAN'S FRIENDSHIP. In finding that the death of June Carter, aged 18 years, at Whenuapai, on October 7, was the result of poison self-administered while she mentally depressed, the coroner, Mr. F. K. Hunt, at an inquest at Henderson yesterday afternoon, commented on th« conduct of Leslie Reanney, a married man, of whom she had become enamoured.

Friendship Continued. Reanney, in hig evidence, stated that nearly three years ago there had been a strong friendship between himself and th girl, whom he had kissed at times. He was then 29 years of age and married. He was storekeeper and postmaster at Whenuapai. Her father spoke to witness on the subject, saying he was sending the girl to Auckland, and witness agreed that he "had been a fool and would not see Juney again." Witness said he tried to keep his promise and had not since sought to meet the girl, but that on his frequent business visits to town in his van meetings did take place a number of times. He explained that this was due to the girl knowing his routine calls in town and beinpr at the places when he pot there, despite his remonstrances and repeated requests that she should not do this.

Under a lengthy cross-examination by Mr. R. P. Hunt (instructed by Mr. J. C. Tole), who appeared for the girl's parents), witness maintained that in the last two years he had not met the pirl by appointment or resumed the former friendly relationship. A new dress suit he pot and put in his van on one visit to town was not there when he got home, and he learned next time he saw the girl that she had taken it. He mentioned this to his wife and they agreed it would be unwise for him to pro to the girl's room or place of work for it. He knew where she worked, hut did not know where her room was. He did not mention to the girl's father or mother that she continued to see him when he went to town. She had written him a few letters which he destroyed without answering; he had never written her a letter. Taking of a Liquid.

Witness detailed the events of October 7 when he was chopping wood at his house at Whenuapai nbout 10 a.m., and suddenly saw the girl, who had called at the house the previous night and had left presumably to go to her home nearby, suddenly appeared near him with a glass jar in her hand. The jar was about a third filled with a milky fluid and when he knocked it out of her hand she Temarked "That won't do you any good. There's plenty more." While he called his wife and discussed ringing the police the girl walked to a shrubbery and they heard sounds like sobbing. Mrs. Reanney saw the girl was trying to be sick and as witness went across the yard he found a paper packet and label of a poison, on which limewater was stated as an antidote. They took the girl to the house. She would not take a drink from Mrs. Reanney. but while the latter went to ring up the police and Dr. Harris witness got the jrirl to take two "lasses of limewater. The girl did not improve, but collapsed and died before the doctor arrived.

Season For Girl's Visit. To Mr. Elcoat (his counsel), witness stated that he had sold out hi* store business as from October 1, and had been busy installing the incoming man on October 5, on the evening of which June Carter made an unexpected visit to the house near the store where he and his wife had been living for some days. When she met him she asked if he had sold out, and he said he had. The Coroner: That was what took her there in a distressed state. She had heard you had sold out, and didn't know where you were going. Why didn't you send her to her parents, only a few hundred y#rds away Witness: She refused to go there. Mrs. Reanney offered to drive her tc Henderson to catch the bus, but she would not go there either. To Constable Pollard witness stated that he and the girl had never spoken of poisons. He had no knowledge of the poison that had been in the packet he found in the yard. Nothing of the kind had been kept in his store.

A Wife's Views. Dorothy Reanney corroborated her husband's evidence respecting the visits to the house by the girl. She attributed the girl's disinclination to go to her home to the fact that June did not desire her parents to know she had broken her promise by visiting witness' husband. Witness knew the girl used to meet her husband in Auckland, and it was for (he same reason that, neither

he nor the girl mentioned it to the parents. She wa« satisfied' the girl forced herself on witness' husband, but did not take it seriously, attributing it to a girlish infatuation that she would get over in time and with other company in town.

The girl's father in his deposition, stated that June would not discuss with him her friendship with Reanney, and the mother said that the girl would not care to let them know of her visit to Reanney'a le9t they thought she was "letting them down" after her promise. Both witnesses testified that ordinarily June was quite happy at home. The medical evidence revealed no abnormal condition of the organs of the body beyond the effects of the poison.

Coroner's Comment. After he had stated his finding of suicide while under great mental stress, the coroner commented on the encouragement given by Reanney, then a man of 29 years and married, to the girl's childish infatuation, and on the fact that later, deapite his promise to the |>arents, the man had not kept the girl at arm's length. For the rest of °his life he would have to reflect that the girl's death was largely the result of that. "I feel," concluded Mr. Hunt, "that she found out you were going away, and didn't know where you were going, she took this stuff."