POISON PILLS TAKEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18080, 3 May 1922, Page 10

POISON PILLS TAKEN.

. — ■» ■ YOUNG WOMAN'S DEATH. "CALLOUS CRUELTY" REVEALED. "She said that Bussall forced her to take the pills. She told me that lie stood over her and said,' Here, take the things. You are bettor dead, Fay.' " This was part of the remarkable story told to the acting-coroner in Sydney recently by Minnie Josephine Growno, in an inquiry concerning tho death of her married daughter, Mabel Eugenia Tomkins, aged 24, who was admitted ho St. Vincent's Hospital on April 3, and died an April 12. Mrs. Grov.no said that her daughter (who was separated from her husband) and Bussell, had been pals tor 18 months. At the hospital her daughter said that Bussell told her to toko the. pills. '• She expected instantaneous death," j tho witness went on. " She told mo that | ho lay on her bed reading a paper whilo she was in agony." The Coroner: Did she tell you that she took the pills by mistake? Witness: Yes; she told mo that once. You know that this story is a serious and damaging one? —It is true. Why didn't you toil the police what you have said this morning':—l wanted to shield her memory. But it is someone else you axe making these statements against?—l didn't like to tell the police the truth. She saw Bussell at the hospital after her daughter's death, and said: "Jack, J. know the truth." He replied, " I don** give a damn I" She asked him what arrangements ho was going to make, and ho said, " Let her husband bury her." Dr. McCarthy said that on her admission to the hospital on April 3, Mrs. Tomkins said that she had taken some pills the (Lay before in mistake for tablets tor her cold, and at once became ill. She died on April 12 from poisoning. Joseph Barr, a manufacturer, of Stanley Street, by whom tho deceased was miployed, said that she told him she took tho Dills in mistake. Frank William Bussell, a chairmaker, saitl he had known the deceased about two years, and had kept company with her for nine months. On April 2 he was at her flat from about 3 p.m. till 9.30 p.m. She was ill, and said she had taken the wrong pills- He asked her would he get a doctor, and she said, "No, I'll be all right." '"- Bnssell denied that ho had any of her property, or. that ' Mrs. Grown© had . asked him to pay half the funeral ex- ■ penses. In reply to the coroner, Bussell said that he knew, when he got to the house, that Mrs. Tomkins had taken poison. The Coroner : Yet you left her there, taking no stops whatever to have her relieved of pain or risk of death? " Bussell : I stopped there with her. Shti refused to let me go for a doctor. -~ Mrs. Growno : Didn't you see her at five to 12 that day?— No. Yes, you did. Don't tell lies! Didn't you stand over her and say, "Take them; • it's the best thing you can do?"— "She was dying when she ■ told me that," Mrs, Grow/no declared. . "He is a" liar. He won't te'l the truth. She took 16 pills from that bottle, and he read the paper while she was dying." ;' The Coroner: Did you do anything ■U for the girl ? "J-: - Mrs. Growno: Nob a scrap. ' He did ■ 'S nothing. - ■"' ."Bussell: I gave her some salt "Titer. . V '' . ' ' .:■„„ Mrs. Growno: He tells lies' The Coroner: ■ You can think what : you like, but you must not say. thatThe coroner recorded an open verdict. •,;•.' . "Fortunately," he said, "such examples of ca'lousness very seldom come under the notice of this Court. I have only heard of one case that equals this. It is a really terrible and outrageous thing -•:": f that a , man should be in the home of this woman, knowing that she had taken psison, and do nothing whatever that was likely to save her life. It is a terrible disgrace.. A more absolutely callous piece of cruelty I never heard of." • * Indicating Bussell, the coroner said, "You may go,"