THE AUCKLAND SENSATION

Evening Star, Issue 23500, 14 February 1940, Page 8

THE AUCKLAND SENSATION

INQUEST ON MRS LAURIE VERDICT OF SUICIDE FROM GAS POISONING [Per United Press Association.] AUCKLAND, February 14. A verdict of suicide from gas poisoning was returned by the coroner, Mr Hunt, at tlio inquest concerning the death on November 0 of Beatrice Florence Uita Laurie (39), of_ Belmont, Takapuna, the wife of Francis Leonard Laurie, storeman at the Devonport naval base. The police report to the coroner stated that there was no family. On November 5 Laurie left his home accompanied by Mrs Josephine Ann Laycock, his next-door neighbour, and next morning they were found in a bedroom at the Station Hotel in a state of collapse, both suffering from wounds on the left forearm. Dr Gilmour, pathologist at the Auckland Hospital, said that the body contained carbon monoxide of at least 80 per cent, of saturation. Detectives said when they entered the house there was a strong smell of gas, and Mrs Laurie was lying with her head on a cushion near an open door of a gas stove. Detective Miller stated that the window and two doors of the kitchenette were closed and the back door locked. Pieces of newspaper and tea towels had been placed under both doors from the inside. The kitchenette was completely sealed. Mrs Laurie had the appearance of having died some hours previously. She was attired in a nightdress and slippers. On the top page of a writing pad was the following message: “I leave everything I possess, personal and otherwise, to ray sister, Dorothy May Illingworth, and my brother, Ernest Wheeler, to be divided equally.—Rita Laurie.” Underneath was ■written; “ Please cremate me. Love to all. This is the only way. Forgive roe.”

Witness added that there were two Auckland Savings Bank deposit books, 6no in Mrs Laurie’s name and the other a joint account with her husband, the sum of £l3 in banknotes and silver, and also an art union ticket. . In the sink they found a small drinking glass which had contained a brown-coloured liquid. This was later found to be a solution of opium. The body was removed to the morgue and later cremated.

The Coroner: Would you say Mrs Laurie was worried by tho way her husband was carrying on? Detective Miller replied that this was no doubt the case.

[With wounds in the arms, Laurie and Mrs Layoock were removed from a bedroom in the Station Hotel at 8.30 on the morning of November 6 and taken to hospital. Mrs Laycook had a severe wound in the right forearm, and her condition was at first reported as serious through loss of blood, Laurie’s wound was in the left forearm. When the police visited Laurie’s home they found Mrs Laurie lying on the floor of the kitchen clad in a pink nightdress and cardigan, with her head) in the gas oven. She was dead, and had left a note, in the course of which she had bequeathed! her property.]