WIFE’S TRAGIC FIND

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 March 1930, Page 6

WIFE’S TRAGIC FIND

... 111 — HUSBAND AND CHILDREN DEAD. When Mrs. Morphet, of Prescott Road, Long Sowerby, Carlisle, returned home late at night she was horrified to find her husband, James Morphet, aged 30, a railway workers, and their two children —James, aged four, and Dorothy, aged two —dead in bed. The house was full of gas, and the children were clasped in their father’s arms. Mrs. Morphet rushed frantically from the house and roused several neighbours, who dressed and readily responded to her appeal for assistance. Tthe man and the children were carried outside into the garden, and artifiical respiration was applied in vain. By midnight practically the whole neighbourhood had heard of the tragedy and a large crowd collected. The Morphet family had lived in Long Sowerby for two years, and the house which they occupied is a typical corporation dwelling. At the foot of the bed on which the man and the children were lying was a gas fire. A small pipe which fed the fire from the meter had been cut in two and about 12ft. of rubber piping carried to the bed and placed beneath the clothes. The gas was turned full on, and the bed clothes were over the heads of the man and the children. Morphet had been in ill-health. He was an ex-serviceman, and also served in the Royal Irish Constabulary. Neighbours describe the Morphets as a very loving couple, and they admired the interest which the dead man showed in his two lovable children. Dorothy was said to be “a perfect picture, with her curly mop.”