OLD MAN MURDERED

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 May 1927, Page 4

OLD MAN MURDERED

WIFE ADMITS CRIME. A charge of murdering her 85-year-old husband. William Lovell Yearworth, at his home at the village of Hambrook, was preferred at Chichester recently against his wife, Selina Emily Bettierworth Yearworth. aged •15. Mr Paling, prosecuting, said Yearworth was a naval pensioner. His first wife died in 1914, and when he was 81, married his present, wife, who had been his housekeeper. He agreed to-make a will leaving all his property to her. They parted on several occasions. On December 26, Airs Yearworth left her husband and went to Portsmouth, where she was operated on for some internal trouble. While she was away. Yearworth was practically unattended, and his wifi; returned on February 21. though she was in a bad state of health herself. On Saturday, February 26, Yearworth was looking a little better, and that was the last time he was seen alive.

At 1 a.m. the next, morning, neighbours were awakened by grave) thrown against their windows and Mrs Yearworth said, ’’Come and see.” They found her husband dead on the floor of the kitchen. The woman was kneeling down holding his head in her hands.

Asked what had happened, she replied: “He told me to put some sticks ou the tire. He was always ordering me about. Then he asked me to make him a cup of tea. After drinking it he got up to put the cup on the fable, but. he made a. gasp for breath and fell on the floor.”

Dr. Turnbull was summoned, but he did not closely examine the body. When he called on Monday, he saw smoke coming from the back of the house. The flames were extinguished bv buckets of water.

'ffiie body had been moved from its original position and. the whole place was in a. slate of disorder. There was a. strong smell of para Ilin and part of the floor and the chairs had been burned. The body was badly charred.

A post-mortem examination . disclosed seven wounds in the back of the head, and several broken ribs. Death was due to shock from the injuries obviously caused by violence. Therp was not the slightest doubt that Yearworth was murdered, and that afterwards a deliberate attempt was made to fire the house.

The wife was found lying on a seat in Westbourne Church with the empty oil-container of a paraffin lamp in her hand.

To Police-Superintendent Brett she said: “I shall make a confession. I did do my husband in. not meaningly, but. owing to the serious cp&idition of my health. I did not know al the time what I was doing ’

“Something went wrong with my head, and 1 went for him hammer and tongs. I may have picked up something from the fireplace to hit him with. I don't remember.

“On Sunday I went to bed and woke up in a fright. I went to look at my husband with a candle in my hand. The flame caught the curtains. No, that is not right. “I felt a smell of burning after going upstairs and on coming down, 1 saw that the window curtain had caught fire and that it was spreading. I tried to move him Everything else seemed to catch fire. The next thing I remember was somebody standing over me in the church.” In an unaddressed letter found in the house, Mrs Yearworth had written: “I shall take my own life. A life for a life. It is what he has driven me to. I was not well enough to come back. This week has done for me in more ways than one.” The case was adjourned. A