VERDICT OF MURDER AND SUICIDE
Deaths By Gas Poisoning A verdict that Francis Leonard Laurie murdered Josephine Aim Laycock and then commit led suicide was returned by the coroner, Mr. W. G. L. Hellish, in Wellington yesterday. Death in both cases was due to carbon monoxide poisoning. Evidence was given that Laurie and Mrs. Laycock were found dead til I'-’ Riddiford Street on April 9 with their heads in a gas oven. The last time they bail been seen was on March 27. There was a note on the premises from Laurie stating that because of the pain in his wife's finger he had given her sleeping tablets, and he had given her too much. Mrs. Laycock bad a poisoned linger which she had been having treated at the Public Hospital. Dr. P. P. Lynch said the sleeping tablets found in the house were harmless, but there was enough of the drug in Mrs. Laycock’s stomach Io make her comatose, ami incapable of putting her head in the oven.
"It seems clear lli.it Mrs. I.aycoek was unconscious or incapable id* resistance when tier bead was pul in tin* oven by Laurie." remarked the coroner in returning his verdict.
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Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 173, 18 April 1942, Page 8
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198VERDICT OF MURDER AND SUICIDE Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 173, 18 April 1942, Page 8
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