A DOUBLE TEAGEDY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18730, 7 December 1922, Page 3

A DOUBLE TEAGEDY

NEW ZEALANDER SHOOTS HIMSELF. WIFE DIES OF POISON. MAD WITH GRIEF. (Feom Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, October 13. News comes from Lucerne of a grim tragedy in which an Auckland man took his own life. Becoming mad from, the sudden death of his wife, it is stated, he toed a shot at her dead body and then committed suicide. Mr Cyril Vernon Wallace, who, it appears, was badly wounded during the war, married an English lady, and recently they had Deen living in furnished rooms in ■tiemstall road, West Hampstead. Bomo weeks ago the couple went on a tour to the Continent. They arrived at Lucerne from Vienna on Saturday night, September SO, and the tragedy occurred next day. Mrs Wallace complained of feeling unwell when they arrived at the station, and her husband took her in a cab to one of the best hotels of the town. She at once went to bed, and her husband called a doctor, 'lho patient complained of violent stomach pains, and at first thought she was eurtering from acute indigestion. Later she showeu symptoms of food, poisoning. FIRED AT HIS DEAD WIFE. The doctor prescribed for her and went away, saying he would call the next morning. Uut her condition became rapidly worse, and after some hours of ,agony sno died. When her husband realised that she was dead he threw himself on her body an gave way to a paroxysm of grief. 1-iater, when left alone, he apparently obtained a revolver from his luggage, fired a bullet in the dead woman s head, and then shot himself. Inquiries made at the house where Mr and Mrs Wallace resided reveal the far:t that ttiey left a month ago for a holiday trip. 'They appeared to be extremely tond of each other," said one of the other tenants. ' Mr Wallace owned a motor car and appeared to ce in comfortable circumstances. They havo lived in this house since Christmas. Last year they went away to the v.,ontirmtiJi. S.V-J I understood they were combining business with pleasure. This year, however, Mr Wallace said that they were going for pleasure, and he added that they were to visit Paris and pass through Belgium and Switzerland to Italy. \V e were expecting them back in a day or two when we received word of the tragedy." Mr Wallace was described on his passport as a cutter* and designer. He was 27 years old, and his wife, whose maiden name was Howard, was the same age.