TWO WIVES KILLED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21855, 18 July 1934, Page 9

TWO WIVES KILLED

RELEASE FROM ASYLUM CRITICISM BY CORONER Francis O'Brien, aged 59, a wharf labourer, in Melbourne, in 1924 killed his first wife, but was acquitted on a chargo of murder on the grounds of insanity. He was later released as sane, married again, and in May of this year killed his wife and their three-children, and then committed suicide. His second wife had also once been an inmate of a mental institution. The acting-coroner, Mr. McLean, hold an, inquiry into the death of O'Brien, his second wife, Rose Dorothy O'Brien, aged 39, and the children, Owen, Joan and Marie O'Brien, aged three years, two years and 11 months respectively. Mr. McLean found that the wife and the three children died of wounds inflicted by O'Brien while he was of unsound mind, and ill at O'Brien killed himself. * The coroner criticised the Director of Mental Hygiene, whose "unfortunate relaxation 1 of a sense of responsibility" he described, as "very disquieting." , Mr. McLean said ho . thought that in the case of any. prisoner who had been found not guilty of murder on the grounds of insanity, and had been committed to an institution, ample precautions should be taken to guard against any probable repetition of his actions.