POISON MYSTERY

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXI, Issue 10905, 3 September 1932, Page 3

POISON MYSTERY

BLIND SON OF WEALTHY WIDOW. Sydney, Aug. 25. There was a sensational development to-day in the case of the death at Forbes on August 2, of Christopher Robert Hepburn, aged 32, blind son of a wealthy widow.Bmily Cabot. The Commissioner of Police Mr Childs, stated that he had sent Detective Sergeant Mcßoe, of the C. 1.8., to Forbes to reopen the investigation of the mystery. Mcßae, with Detective Sergeant Allmond, investigated the Bungendore bones case and the recent Cooma murders. Hepburn died of cyanide poisoning and the Coroner last Tuesday returned an open verdict. There are curious feature about Hepburn’s death. He was totally blind, and is said to have possessed £2OOO. Two years ago, according to his mother, he shot himself in one eye, at Dulwich Hill, and subsequently lost the sight of the other eye. In her dramatic story to the Forbes Coroner, Mrs Cabot stated that her son had often indicated that he would take his own life, but she and their friends were always most vigilant of Hepburn, and made sure that no means of self-destruction, such as knives and scissors and poisons, were available to him. At 2 a.ra. on August 2, she was awakened by footsteps on the verandah on which her son slept. A few minutes later she heard gurgling sounds and called out to him. George Gordon, a companion of Hepburn, who was living in the house, and Mrs Cabot, and other occupants of the place, rushed to the verandah and found Hepburn dying. A bottle of cyanide was found between his legs. Mrs Cabot said that neither she nor anybody else in the house had previously seen the bottle. She was certain that the footsteps she had heard were those of a person wearing boots or shoes. Her son, she emphasised, had been in bed in pyjamas, and had not been wearing shoes. Mrs Cabot said the fact that her son was blind made it difficult for him to find poison or anything else for the purpose of committing suicide. She and her 'son, had always been on the best of terms and he had left a will disposing of his money. He bequeathed £IOO each to five or six friends and the balance to his mother. , „ The evidence given by George Gordon and Hepburn’s other companion, Herbert Grey, was to the effect that they had not before seen the bottle containing poison and that the blind man had not at any time sought their aid in securing means of bringing about his death. All members of the household had done everything in their power to make Hepburn happyThe police are inclined to suspect that someone obtained poison for Hepburn. This is the problem for the Sydney detectives who arrived at Forbes to-day.