FAKE SUICIDE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 74, 29 March 1943, Page 4

FAKE SUICIDE

HUSBAND'S RUSE

HOPED TO SCARE WIFE

The melodramatic story of a man who stage-managed his own "suicide" in order to impress on his wife his deep feeling of hurt at the manner in which she had been conducting herself, was told in the Police Court this morning.

It awakened a feeling of sympathy in the magistrate, Mr. J. H. Luxford, who discharged him on a charge of attempting to commit suicide, and suppressed his name. "You worked a great stunt, but it just missed fire," said Mr. Luxford. "If what you say is correct it was quite a justifiable stunt, I think."

The story, as it was told by the police, and in other evidence, was that accused, a young man with two children, had been quarrelling with his wife about her going out at night and returning late. He had followed her on this occasion to the city. She had told him she was going to the pictures, but he saw her, in company with another woman, meet a visiting serviceman outside the Chief Post Office. Scene Prepared He spoke to her, in remonstrance, and was told that if he went home without maKTng a scene sue would follow him. She didn't, and as the hours of the night passed he planned to shock her by staging a suicide. He drank some harmless nerve tonic, and smoked cigarettes to make himself drowsy, placed an empty bottle, labelled "Poison" beside a couch, made a superficial cut on his wrist with a razor-blade, and dripped some blood on to a newspaper, which he laid down to protect the carpet. To make it look more realistic, as there was not enough blood, he took a carving knife, smeared the blade with blood, and put it with the other "exhibits" on the floor. He then lay down on the couch, his cut arm hanging to the floor. His plan went astray when a neighbour entered the open and lighted room before his wife returned home. He was in a dazed condition and she called the police, who in turn called the ambulance. Accused then had a brief stay in hospital. Neighbour's Story "It was all a misunderstanding," the magistrate was told Dy a woman witness. It was she who had been with the wife in the city, and it was she who, going in before the wife, had spoiled the drama of the scene. She told how she had been talking to the wife in the city when she saw the husband coming towards them. Knowing that there had been "a bit of an upset," witness had approached a sailor and asked him "to stand by in case there was any trouble." She assured the Court that the man's wife was not associating with servicemen, but was going to the pictures with another woman, whom she missed. She and the wife had actually gone to the pictures together and returned home at 11.45. She had gone into the house first to try to assure the husband of these facts.

Accused, in a statement read by the police, said that his wife had come to see him in the hospital and that they were now coming to an understanding. In discharging accused, who had pleaded not guilty, the magistrate said that he wanted to give the couple a chance to complete their understanding.