Holiday Death

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 246, 18 October 1935, Page 2

Holiday Death

MURDER CHARGE WIFE SENT FOR TRIAL ' Boardinghouse Drama ■ Noises from a bedroom of a seaside boardinghouso ... a woman sitting on the window-sill shouting “Murder!” the discovery of an elderly man with his face half-shaved lying dead aeross the fire-place. These were dramatic incidents described in court at Eastbourne when Mrs Alice Read, 5(3, of Oxford Road, Chiswick, was charged with the murder of her husband, Charles Read, aged 64. She wal also accused of attempted suicide. Mr. E. G. Robey, proscuting, declared that Mrs. Read and her husband lived on amiable terms at their, home, but towards the end they did not enjoy good health. The woman was nervous and hysterical, and her husband was suffering from arthritis. They had one son, whose birthday was on July 29, the day after the tragedy. This was a material fact. Tho son last saw his parents on June 24, when his mother was hysterical. Mrs. Read and her husband arrived at an Eastbourne boading-liouse on June 29, and booked a double room for a fortnight. The proprietress thought that tho woman's demeanour was rather strange. Letter to Son Still moro strange was a letter written by the woman to her son and posted on July 6. Tho letter read: “My Dear Son, —You will bo surprised to hear there will bo many changes during the next week. I r.rn feeling so queer. Everything is upsido down. Make the best of it. George, darling, you are my son, and your father is very much changed. Wo aro upsido down and my nerves are bad. If you go homo see that everything is alright. lam trembling so. We come home at the end of next week if nothing happens. Happy birthday to you. It may be a sad one for you if I don't come back. I will try to be strong.—Your lovingdevoted mother, Alice.'' Mr. Robey remarked that it was a fair inference from this letter that something drastic was comtemplated by tho woman. At 8.30 a.m. on July S the proprietress of tho boarding-house heard a scraping noise and shouts from the couple's bedroom. She found the husband lying on the floor with a wound in his throat and the woman with her legs out of the ■window. With assistance she pulled the woman in, but she climbed out again. Two men on the parade who saw the woman ran into the house and helped to pull her in. She had a wound in tho throat. The husband, who was dead, had half shaved his face. Mr. Robey remarked that the woman had made several statements, the effect, of which was: “I did it to him and I did it to myself.'' When charged she said: “I did not do that.” In her statement thero were references to another woman divorcing her husband, but “she could not bring herself to do it because she loved him to much.” If the man had committed misconduct is was not material to the ease, but it might have had an influence on the wifo, remarked Mr. Robey, who added that Sir Bernard Spilsbury would say that the man could not have made the wound himself. Detective-Inspector Sawkins informed the magistrates that Mrs. Read told him in the hospital: “He thought that ho would get off scot free, but I did it for him. I tried to jump out of the window. ’' Mrs. Read pleaded not guilty and reserved her defence. She was sent for trial at tho Old Bailey.