NURSE ON TRIAL

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 48, 27 February 1933, Page 9

NURSE ON TRIAL

POISONING- CHAEGE

SEQUEL TO EXHUMATIONS

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.) '~ ' ATJOKLAJSTD, This Day. The trial of Nurse Elspoth Kerr on charges of administering poispn to Dorothy Cameron with intent to injure and so that her lifo was endangered was opened this morning. The elates, of the three alleged offences were April' .8, 10, and 16 of last year. The Crown Solicitor, Mr. V. E. Meredith, prosecuted, and Mr. B. A. Singer and Mr. "W. Meek defended. Inspector' Cummings, of the Police .Commissioner's office, was present. , Mr. Meredith saia that poisoning charges were fortunately rare. In this case there was no ascertainable motive that was sufficiently strong to impel a normal person to commit the crime of poisoning. The child to whom the poison was administered was the accused's own fosterchild, and had been ■well spared for .by the accused and showed the greatest affection for her. Mr. Meredith strongly warned the jury not to allow any preconceived opinion to influence their judgment. Unfortunately the case had been repeatedly ■brought before the public notice. He referred to the exhumation of bodies which the police had tried to perform as quietly as possible:- Publication of the fact of these exhumations had given rise" to a rumour, and he asked the jury ito dismiss absolutely anything they had heard or read. Mr. Meredith said that the poison concerned was in fairly common use nnd was also very dangerous. It could be bought freely, and was not listed as a poison of which . chemists must keep a register. It was a habit-forming drug. The aeeused herself was a drug addict. For medicinal purposes the dose was from 5 to 10 gains, and an average fatal dose was 50 .grains. TWO PREVIOUS STJDDEN DEATHS. Mr. Meredith said that the charges concerned only the child Cameron, but there would be evidence of other suggested poisonings. The circumstances of two previous sudden deaths in the accused's nursing horn ■ were suspicious} her husband died on January 10, 1933, after being in a coma for thirty-six hours, and a Airs. Day died on September 28, 1931, after a coma of twenty-eight. hours. Iv the first case a certificate was given that death was due to cerebral hemorrhage. Last August the body was exhumed, and an autopsy showed that death was not due to hemorrhage but to the effects of poison, of which over eighteen grains Were found. An examination of Mrs Day'a body showed no sign of a recent stroke, but the same poison was found. After detailing the evidence it was proposed to call, Mr. Meredith read a lengthy statement by the accused, and remarked that the explanation given in it WOUld not aeCOUIIt for tlie severe symptoms caused by poisoning.