"MAD WITH TORMENT"

Evening Star, Issue 16993, 15 March 1919, Page 12

"MAD WITH TORMENT"

YOUNG TOF, SUFFOCATED. In the dock at Leineter Assizes a son stood charged with the murder of hi* young wife by suffocating her under a feather bed,, and his mother is to be charged on the same count. liichard Purser, of Castletown, near Carlow, the son, married Annie- Ashmore on April 17 last. She brought him a dowry of £BO. Disputes, said the prosecuting counsel, soon began, the bride complaining that she did" not g*-t enough to eatlln September a deed was drawn up dei fining the "duties and privileges" of wife ■and mother-in-law respectively. Almost I imiijediately afterwards, raid, counsel, ! rmrthcr and son began to poison the^: young | woman with She- had to take to her bed. On the morning of October 3 imothm- and son took a feather bed tick ' into her room, and placed it over Iter. Then both mother and son lay on the ! tick until she was stifled. -After'"being I cautioned, the mother said she and' Richard put the.feather tick over Annie's face. "I lay on the tick for a few minutes', and then ' found my daughter-in-law dead." Richard said: "I assisted my mother ;n lying on the. tick which my mother bad placed over my wife." h> letters to three clergymen Richard wrote: "The devil took full possession of -as, and we were tempted to.do it; Vf.? have truly repented and confessed." \To relatives he. wrote '•Mother and .1 wore mad with torment." 1 Being found "guilty," Purser was sentenced to death. He was .strongly recommended to mercy, the defence being that he was a mental degenera&r>