THE MAREO TRIAL

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 169, 18 June 1936, Page 8

THE MAREO TRIAL

CROWN’S SUBMISSIONS. . ADDRESS TO THE JURY. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, June 17. Lengthy queues of men and women the opening of the doors when the Mareo retrial entered what is expected to be the last day. Mr V. It. Meredith (for the Crown), resuming his address, said the case was clearly one of veronal poisoning. If Mrs Mareo took the veronal herself it was either suicide or misadventure. If, on the other hand, it was administered intentionally by someone else, then the act involved that person in the crime of murder. The Mareos had been married only 18 months and the bride had £SOO, of which tho husband had dissipated £4OO. It was idle to say it was a happy marriage. Three bitter quarrels were known of. One was the occasion when Mareo came home from Dixieland drunk. After indulgence in liquor restraint was lifted and the real state of the mind was indicated. Marco abused his wife that night and she replied that she would go out into the street if.he would give her back her £SOO. Then there was the mental attitude of accused on the night he was driven home in a drunken condition by Eleanor Brownlee. It was clear that Mi £ s Brownlee came that night with the intention oi stopping, for she was equipped with her pyjamas. She must have come at Marco’s invitation. Later, Mareo, in a semi-dressed condition, had ordered liis wife out and said “Eleanor will look alter me. Then there was Mareo’s accusation against his wife of perversion. Bv this time lie had no social relations with, his wife, who had been entirely supplanted bv Miss Brownlee. , Mr Meredith referred to Mrs Mareo s brightness with Freda Stark on the Friday night and her request to come early next day. That was the picture of Mrs Mareo, but what of Marcof Counsel then outlined the incident of the writing and the handing ot a morbid letter to Betty Mareo concerning her parentage. Mr Meredith lengthdy described incidents which occurred during the fatal week-end and, touching on the incident of giving deceased milk, said Dr. Giesen had agreed that Mareo s subsequent sleepiness, together with the fact that he couldn t be roused, was consistent with Mareo having had a dose of veronal before the time Mrs Mareo was taken to the lavatory. Dr. Giesen had agreed also that the condition of Mrs Mareo was consistent with a dose of veronal having been taken just before she went to tho lavatory. “Now gentlemen,” said Mr Meredith, “you get this startling position: Just before the milk was prepared they apparently were both free from the influence of veronal; so you have it that at the same time two different people were both showing signs of veronal. If Mrs Mareo got it at that time she got it in only one way—it definitely must have been in the milk. \V ho hau veronal in his possession at that time?—Mareo. Who was out in the kitchen preparing the milk?—Mareo. Then, taking the evidence of Mareo going under the influence, what possible inference can you draw but that when Mareo prepared the milk he put veronal in it, took some himself and gave his wife a fatal dose ?