A TRAGEDY IN A PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIO.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LI, Issue 5589, 23 January 1879, Page 5

A TRAGEDY IN A PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIO.

“ Considerable excitement,” states the Darling Doicns Gazette, " was caused in Towoomba, Queensland, on Dee. 28, by the report that a young woman had been poisoned at Mr Minogue’s photographic studio in Euthven street, and on making inquiries we discovered that the rumour was only too true. It appears that on the evening in question the deceased, Mary O’Brien, in company with a girl named Qerahty, both servants at the Queen’s Arms Hotel, went to Minogue’s at about half-past 8 o’clock for the purpose of inquiring about some photographs ho was doing. They met a girl named Bridget Erawiey, and the three of them went into his, studio to find, however, that the photographs were not completed. Minogue told them the photos were in the bath, and the young women insisted on seeing them, and went into his workroom for the purpose. Bridget Erawiey asked him for a drink, and he gave her one. The drink was a cooling one, mixed with tartaric acid, which was in a pickle bottle on a small table, on which were several other bottles also, amongst them a pickle bottle similar to the one that contained the acid. The second pickle bottle contained cyanide of potassium, a chemical used by photographers, and a deadly poison The girl Geranty had a drink also, and all with the exception of deceased were turning to leave, when she helped herself to a drink, and, it is presumed, mistook the bottle with the poison for that containing the tartaric acid. However, the three had their attention suddenly called to the girl O’Brien by hearing a heavy fall, and Minogue, at once suspecting the cause, and finding her to be in an apparently dying state, rushed off for medical aid, returning with Dr Howlin. The doctor administered the usual remedies in such cases, but without avail, as the unfortunate young woman died in about twenty-live minutes after swallowing the poison.”