A SPINSTER'S DEATH

Otago Witness, Issue 3019, 24 January 1912, Page 29

A SPINSTER'S DEATH

CHARGES AGAINST MAN AND WIFE.

LONDON, January 16,

Mrs Seddon has been arrested on a charge of being an accessory to the murder alleged to have been committed by her husband in December. The evidence shows that the Seddons induced Miss Barrow to lodge with them and to give them property, including £I6OO worth of India stock, in consideration of Seddon paying her £3 per week.

There was a remarkable sequel on December 4 to the inquest which was opened on November 23 by the coroner for Central Middlesex on the body of Eliza Mary Barrow, a well-to-do spinster. Following on the exhumation of the body, a course which the coroner declared to be necessary, the police arrested Frederick Henry Scddon, a district superintendent for the London and Manchester Assurance Company, at whose house in Tollington Park, N., Miss Barrow had been lodging. The accused was taken to the Hornsey Road Police Station, and charged with the murder of Miss Burrow.

At the inquest Chief Detective Inspector Ward was present on tchalf of the police authorities at Scotland Yard. The Coroner stated at the outset that information had oome to his knowledge which renderf*’ full inquiry desirable. Miss Barrow, who was aged 49, died on September 14, and death was certified by a doctor as being due to enteritis.

In his examination by the coroner, Frederick Seddon said Miss Barrow engaged rooms at his house in July 1910. She was not visited by her relatives. She held various property, including the lease of a public house at Camden Town, and India sto<:k. In consideration for having the leaso transferred to him the witness allowed Miss Barrow £SO a year. The house, he through, would bring in £l2O a year clear. The Coroner; Then for £1203k year you were going to give her £SO a year? You kept £7O a year for yourself to recompense you for the time she should live after the lease had run out?—There was the possibility of her living 10 or 15 years after the lease had run out.

The India stock was also, said the witness, transferred to him and sold for £1520, and ho granted Miss Barrow another annuity on account of this transference. Altogether ho allowed her £3 2s a we< k. The deceased woman by her will left all her property in trust for two children of an uncle, and appointed the witness the sole executor. The Coroner: Before ties woman came to you she had an income of £l2O net from the houses in Camden Town and another £SO from the Indian stock, which is good security. In addition she had capital £2OO. She had in all an income of £l7O a year, which you reduced to £124? The witness: She Hve<l in ray house rent free. There was really very little difference in her position.