Love Letters Found In Dead Woman’s Room

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31315, 10 March 1967, Page 3

Love Letters Found In Dead Woman’s Room

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, March 9. Letters expressing, love and containing other terms of endearment were found in the room of a dead charge sister at R.N.Z.A.F. base, Whenuapai, a jury in the Supreme Court at Auckland heard today.

Doreen Ellen Davis, aged 30, a nursing sister, has denied murdering the charge sister, Raewin Kathleen Joy Petley, aged 40, at Whenuapai, on November 19, last year. The case is being heard before Mr Justice Moller and a jury of three women and nine men. Mr O. S. Morris, with him Mr J. G. Miles, is prosecuting and Mr K. Ryan appears for Davis. Detective William George Gillian said on November 21 hd searched Sister Petley’s room and found a plastic folder containing photographs of the accused. An inscription on the back of one of them and the contents of letters also found in the room were of an emotional nature and contained expressions of love and heartbreak. The letters were . not addressed or signed by name, he said. Evidence On Drugs Dr. J. R. C. MacLaurin, cross-examined by Mr Ryan, said his contact with the ordering of drugs at Whenuapai had been fairly small.

To the Judge, he said he could not recall whether he had ever signed prescriptions for a patient who appeared as a nursing sister on the prescription.

To Mr Ryan, Dr. MacLaurin said he could not recall whether there were any tablet bottles on the dresser by Sister Petley’s bed when he examined her after she was found dead.

The witness was questioned by the Judge about the drug tuinal. A bottle bearing the label tuinal was found in a wastepaper basket beside Davis’s bed at Hill House. Dr. MacLaurin said tuinal was a mixed drug containing two barbiturate compounds in equal parts. One was a fairly quick-acting hypnotic, the other was slower acting. The drug was used to help to induce and maintain sleep. He said it would be unusual for a nursing sister to have a large quantity of these tablets in her possession unless they had been ordered by a medical officer. Fatal Dose Answering a written question from the jury, the doctor said he could not give an exact answer on how many tablets of the drug would have to be taken to prove fatal. The number might range from eight to 20 or more capsules. Dr. R. A. Boas, registrar to the respiratory unit at Auckland Hospital who is now overseas, said in evidence read to the Court that Davis was “clinically dead” when admitted to the unit

“She was cyanosed, which indicated that she had not had an adequat" heart beat or oxygen for some time,” he said.

Davis responded to treatment and made a slow recovery. She was discharged from the respiratory ward on November 24. Scalpel Missing Sergeant Trevor Henry Weaver said that on November 21 he discovered that two scalpels were missing from the Hobsonville base. The prescription poisons and dangerous drugs at Hobsonville tallied with the register. He had taken charge of the drugs found in Sister Petley’s room. He read the names of 11 drugs. One bottle contained

a number of tablets, commonly known as “purple hearts.” Another bottle was labelled poison and contained tablets of a drug not held at Whenuapai. Another bottle carried the label of a prescription poison. Seven of these bottles had the name of Petley on the label.

To Mr Ryan, the witness said it was possible for any nursing sister to go to the Whenuapai hospital dangerous drugs cabinet at any time and remove drugs without his knowledge.

Detective Sergeant Evan Douglas Jenkins said that when he saw Davis at Hobsonville base she was lying on her back in bed.

“She was holding a surgeon’s scalpel loosely in her hand,” he said. In the waste paper basket was a bottle of beer and an empty drug bottle. There was no sign of a struggle, windows were locked, blinds drawn and a bedside light was burning. On. the dressing table were a number of written notes.