Slew Invalid Girl

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 300, 18 December 1937, Page 3 (Supplement)

Slew Invalid Girl

HOW A mother killed her invalid daughter because she feared that, ■with advancing age, she could not continue to look after her, was revealed at the inquest at Kingston on the two women. "I cannot bear t"he thought of leaving Jier behind," wrote the mother in a last note. The women, Mrs. Acla Walsh, aged 70, and her daughter, Mrs. Gertrude Alice Hogg, aged 41, of Gloucester Road, Kingston, were found dead in their home with throat wounds. George Henry Walsh, a retired postal superintendent, husband of Mrs. Walsh, en id that when their daughter was 20 p 11suffered from a severe nervous breakdown, from which she never really recovered. She had been confined to bed since before last Christmas. The Coroner: Was your wife a devoted mother and untiring nurse? —Yes, she devoted the whole of her life to our d;i lighter. I'or the past two years, he continued, his wife and daughter had been under tile constant care of a doctor. When lie returned home on the evening of the tragedy he found a note in his wife's handwriting warning him not to <:'> upstair*. There was also a letter from her. in his daughter's bedroom he found his wife on the floor and his daughter on the lied. Inspector Blair stated that on a camp bed by Mrs. Walsh was an open bloodstained razor. Mrs. Walsh had left a note in which she made it clear that in view of her daughter's ill-health she had decided to end matters. She felt that owing to her age she could not look after her daughter as before, and did not want to leave her to anybody else's care. The foreman said the jury was of the opinion that Mrs. Walsh committed suicide while her mind was unbalanced, and that the daughter's death was caused by her mother while in her unbalanced state. The coroner said he would record a ■verdict of "Murder" in the case of Mrs. Hogg, and of "Suicide while the balance cf her mind was disturbed" in the case of Mrs. Walsh. I