ACQUITTED OF MURDER.

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXIII, Issue 3075, 5 November 1929, Page 5

ACQUITTED OF MURDER.

TENSE COURT SCENE.

SON'S ACT TO SAVE SUFFERING

(Press Association.—Copyright.) (Received 10.45 a.m.) Paris, November 4

Francis Corbett, the Englishman who was tried on a charge of murdering his mother, and his counsel, Maitre Brun, was found not guilty. Corbett fainted as the jurors entered the Court to give their verdict. Women were sobbing, and some fainted. Corbett said, "Science having failed, I delivered her myself." A juryman fainted and the Court was suspended. A majority of the jurors smoked furiously to allay their emotions. A doctor testified that the mother's sufferings were excessive. Corbett stated, "Mother incited me to kill her, but never definitely asked me to do so. I deliberately killed her after administering a sleeping draught."

Mrs. Corbett, an English resident of Nice, was found shot in her home there in May last. Le Matin published a remarkable letter written by her son Francis, in which he said: "A doctor announced in November that my mother was suffering from cancer, and that it was incurable. Why then have I released my mother from her awfuljj suffering? Because the State is unconscious of its duty to hopeless sufferers. There are 45,000 suicides every year in France, and half of these are the result of incurable diseases. It is the State's duty to kill them if they so request. I fired a shot point blank at my mother's temple while she was in a sleep induced by a narcotic." The son was then recovering from a wound alleged to have been selfinflicted after his mother's death.