THE DEAN CASE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2152, 23 May 1895, Page 19

THE DEAN CASE.

A STRANGE STORY. Sydney, May 15. Before the Dean Commission Mr Pilcher, who is appearing for the defence, announced that the theory he intended to set up was that Mrs Dean had been an araenic-eater for years. This he would prove beyond doubt. Evidence had alec been received regarding the antecedents of Mrs Seymour, Mrs Dean's mother, an important witness for the prosecution. Counsel for the Crown admitted she had been sentenced for being concerned 'in a robbery at Melbourne. May 16. The Dean Commission continued tsking evidence as to tho antecedents of Mrs Seymour. Two witnebaes with a past confirmed her bad character. One of these, Boulton, revealed the fact that he shipped to Port Chalmers in the Severn in 1864 as a ship's surgeon without having any medical qualification. May 20. Before the commission set up to consider the Dean case a man named John Asprey, aged 70, found living in the bush at North Shore, said hid attention had been called to the case on Satmday last, and he clearly identified Mrs Seymour, mother of Mrs Dean, as bis wife. In his evidence he declared that be married her at Hobart, where be in 1850 had been transported for seven years on a charge of stealing. They kept several publichouaes and lived happily for a time. Then rows, the result of jealousy, ensued, and finally his wife left him, taking with her the cash br-x, and he had not seen her for the laet 20 years. Some time bftfore she cleared out he twice suffered severely, and the symptoms were those of arsenic poisoning. Afterwards he discjvered that the contents of a bottle of areenic in the house, which he had bought for the purpose of poisoning rats, had mysteriously diminished.