PREFERRED DEATH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 291, 8 December 1937, Page 26

PREFERRED DEATH.

YOUNG LOVERS' CHOICE

VERDICT OF SUICIDE.

Two young lovers, who were soon to be parted, chose to die together. Phyllis Marjorie Rogerson, 22-vear-old domestic science teacher, of Newcastle, was worried because her sweetheart, 24-year-old Thomas Hedley Smith, an accountant, of Newcastle, was to leave for a job in London.

They went for a car ride into the country, and parked, in a lonely lane. There they died together. At the inquest Constable Tait said a piece of rubber tubing led from the exhaust pipe to the inside of the car.

Miss Ethel Bisset, a cousin of Miss Roirerson, said: "She had a responsible post and she had two erening classes which worried her a little. She had some married women, and I do believe they got her down.

"Her boy went away about a month ago, and she was depressed about his absence. She was a pretty girl and had a lot of admirers, but she told me that she positively loved Smith."

A verdict was returned that Rojrerson and Smith committed suicide while the balance of their minds was disturbed.