Suicide pair ‘paranoid’

Press, 13 April 1978, Page 6

Suicide pair ‘paranoid’

PA Auckland Notes left by a couple found dead in a room in an Auckland private hotel made it obvious that both were paranoics who thought they were being persecuted, said the Auckland Coroner Mr A. D. Copeland) yesterday. He was holding an inquest into the death of Albert Lovatt, aged 72, and Valma Lovatt, aged 5(1. The Court was told that the Lovatts were found dead in a ground-floor room of the Grand Vue

Tourist Hotel in Princes Street, Auckland, on February 7. There was an empty brandy bottle on a table and bottles of pills were found in the mouths of both of the deceased. Constable B. A. Jones, of the Auckland police, told the Court that several letters were found on a dressing table. One Was addressed to the police, another to the hotel management, and another bore the name of a solicitor. One of the letters appeared to be a will.

The Coroner said the Lovatts thought they were suffering from cancer but the pathologist’s report showed no sign of the dis-» ease. “It is hard to imagine that in New Zealand, one of the most advanced welfare States in the world, a couple could be reduced to this low state of despair,” he said. Apparently the couple engaged in a suicide pact. The Coroner found that the couple committed suicide, death being a result of barbiturate poisoning.