EXPERIENCES WITH VERONAL

Northern Advocate, 13 June 1936, Page 4

EXPERIENCES WITH VERONAL

INTERESTING EVIDENCE FOR MAREO DEFENCE [Special to “Northern Advocate.”'! AUCKLAND, This Day. With only one witness left to be called for the .defence, Dr E. W. Giesen, of Wellington, the end of the retrial of the Auckland musician, Eric Mareo, aged 45, charged with the murder of his wife, Thelma Clarice Mareo. aged 29, by the administration of the hypnotic drug, veronal, is in sight. No sitting of the Court was held today. When the Court rose shortly before 5 o’clock last night, it was announced by the trial judge, Mr Justice Callan that counsel thought it desirable that the jury should visit the house in Tenterden Avenue, Mt. Eden, where Mrs Mareo had her fatal illness. Arrangements were, therefore, made for an officer of the Court to accompany the jury on their inspection of the house this morning. A Woman’s Experience. Mrs Moira Esma Meissner, of Havelock North, was the next witness, and she said that in September, 1930, she had been suffering badly from insomnia. Eventually she collapsed and a doctor made a pill prescription for her, which she now knew to be barbitone.

Her husband gave her one pill, and after an hour or an hour and a half she went to sleep and slept until 7.30 that evening. Her husband gave her another pill, and she went quickly to sleep after it. She remembered awaking in the morning and taking a third pill. The next day she vaguely remembered sitting up as in a dream and feeling for the pills that should have been by her bedside, but she could not find them. SlTe remembered getting out of bed and searching the room for them, but she could not find them. She stumbled down the passage to the bathroom and climbed on a stool to unlock the medical chest. She found the pills and remembered taking them, but she did not remember how many. , She got back to bed and lost consciousness.

Witness said she awoke again about 7 o’clock in the morning, but she did not know what time had elapsed since her visit to the bathroom. She was amazed to find her face swollen and bluish. She had not taken veronal or barbitone since. She was a bit confused when she awoke, but denied flatly to her husband that she had taken the pills. Afterwards she told him that she had taken them. She had been a nurse before she was married. Recollection of Searching. Witness told Mr Meredith that she must have had seven or eight hours’ sleep after the first pill. She went to sleep within half an hour of taking the second pill. She had a recollection of. searching for the pills as in a dream. It took her quite a long time to get down the hall, bumping into things as she went. Her husband was not in the house at the time. From what she now knew her sleep must have run into the third day. She had no recollection of being fed or given anything. Franz Meissner, an orchardist, of Havelock North, and husband of the previous witness, said ho was a native of Bohemia, in Austria. In September, 1930, he called in.a doctor to his wife, and the doctor made out a prescription. The chemist gave him eight or nine pills. Witness detailed the pills that had been given to his wife. He was a sound sleeper and heard no movements of his- wife in the night. There seemed to be one pill missing, so he took them away and put them in the bathroom cupboard. Witness said his wife slept throughout that day and that night and into the next day. She was sleeping soundly on that third morning. He went to give her tea at 10 a.m., but though he roused her, it was hopeless to give her anything. The position was the same about noon, when she talked nonsense to him. He tried scrambled eggs, but it was a very slow job, and he gave it up. She was asleep when he returned that night, and was still asleep the following morning. He got her to take a little food at about 10 a.m., and she went off to sleep again. The doctor was called, but said to let her sleep.

Denied She Had Taken Pills. \ Later that afternoon witness found the pill box he had put in the bathroom open with nothing in it. His wife woke up when he was playing the piano. “My friend says that is probably what woke your wife up,” remarked Mr O’Leary. Witness saidJie was playing a piece that was JjaaSper rowdy in parts—a After his wife woke she twice denied to him that she had taken the pills, “and we nearly had a row over .it,” he added. Eventually she remembered that she had got them. Cross-examined ,by Mr Meredith, witness said the tablets were 5-grain ones. . Mr Meredith: “You do not know whether there were eight or nine tablets?” —“No.” “How did you figure there was one missing?”—“That was easy.” His Honour said he understood that at the time witness knew how many were there, but he did not remember exactly now. Witness agreed that was so. Witness did not notice anything unusual about his wife’s sleep, he said. He did not tell his doctor how long she had been asleep. He noticed a blotchy look on his wife’s face. To Mr O’Leary he said that prior to this his wife had never taken veronal and she had never taken any since. During the “Duchess of Danzig.” The assistant wardrobe mistress during the “Duchess of Danzig” season, Mrs Alice Frances Smith, said that on the last Monday evening of the season Mrs Mareo did not seem well, and witness asked her if she was well enough to go on the stage. She smelt strongly of liquor, but said she was j quite all right. Witness thought she was under the influence of liquor, and just wondered whether she was well enough to go on. When witness took a dress into Mrs Mareo’s dressingroom one evening there was a bottle of brandy on the table. Replying to Mr Meredith, witness said Mareo and visitors would go to

the room. Any entertaining to k r done would be done in that room, ju- 6 Mareo played, and played brilii ari . , rs on the night of which witness n spoken. She had a heavy and resn Q ' sible task, including dancing and logue. a ' The hearing of evidence will be rp sumed on Monday. e '