"CHANGED MINDS."

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 223, 20 September 1938, Page 19

"CHANGED MINDS."

FARMER AND WIFE.

ACQUITTED BY JURY.

DEA«H PACT WAS REVOKED.

MELBOURNE, September 15

In a dramatic plea to the jury in the Supreme Court at Shepparton, Herbert Henry Morris, 51, a farmer, of Yalca, declared that a death pact with his wife had been revoked. Poison pellets had been replaced by harmless puff paste, he added.

Morns and his wife. Winifred Teresa Morris, 32 both pleaded not puiltv to charges of having attempted to murder one another, having attempted suicide and having attempted to murde* Janet Elizabeth Morris, their three-months-old daughter, at Yalca, between Numurkah and Waaia, on June 6 After a retirement of 55 minutes, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty on all charges and Morris and his wife were discharged. The Crown alleged that the husband and wife had entered into a death pact the result of which was that Morris overturned his motor-car in which he Ins wife and their baby were driving.' i lie turw of them were injured It was alleged also that the husband and wite had taken poison, but when they received hospital treatment no trace oi poison could be found. "I'll Go To."

Morris, in evidence, said thet after the birth of the baby, his wife had fits of depression, and daily eaid she was suffering from all eorte of complaints and that she would end her life. "I tried to reason with her, but it wa,< difficult. After some weeks I said •Look, don't do it. I'll go with you,'" ho declared. "I hoped it would relieve her mind and that she would forget her ideas. It was not succeeeful, for later tshe had the same ideas.

"You see. I loved her very much. The kiddie—well, I worshipped her before Cod. At the finish, I eaid, 'I'll go with you/ I thought it might relieve her if [ paid tin*. We decided we would end our li\(v.''

"I don't drink very much an<l the wife i< teetotal." lip added. '-But that day in Wiuiiii I <]id fill myself with whisky, and 1 madp my wife drink, too.

"We returned home, and when we got to (tut- gate I think I was sobering. We talked it over again. Only for her mental condition my wife didn't want to pud h<>" lifp. anl I am perfectly certain I didn't want to end mine. At the gate she «nd, 'Let's go home. God didn't intend lie to do thi* terrible thing.'

'•\A> wont home happily, lit a fire, and put the baby to bed in' her cot. We derided to go to bed. but in the bedroom my -wife collapsed, and was crying. 'I can't go on with it.'"

Morris said he took poison pellets from his wife's handbag, and, going to the kitchen, he fixed two more pellets with puff paste and threw the poisoned |K>lleU away. He put the harmleee pellete in hie wife's beg. Car Overturned. Morris said that after drinkinjr more whisky and making his wife take some ho pot into his par with hie wife and ■tho baby, intending to go to a eieter of his.

Tin had no recollection of coming "back, of having t«ken the harmless pelleta or of the rrasfc • which followed TrhW- he overturned the car.

. Mrs. Morris, in » statement from the dook. said that all her hueband had said wnf» true.

"We agreed at the gate thet we would live until God wanted us to die,? ehe c?aM.

She did not remember anything more until «he found herself in hospital! It was not her wish that the car should be overturned or that any of them should die.