THE OMEO MURDER

Otago Witness, Issue 3860, 6 March 1928, Page 31

THE OMEO MURDER

INQUEST ON MRS GRIGGS. MELBOURNE, February 28. The inquest on Mrs Griggs was resumed at Omeo. The husband is at present in custody on a charge of murdering his wife. The evidence showed that the relations between Griggs and his wife were strained owing to his relations with another young woman. The wife went away for three months’ holiday, and the night she returned she vas taken sick after eating a meal prepared by her husband, who also supplied her with other food and gave her medicine which the doctor had prescribed, but she gradually grew worse, and died next day. The doctor gave a certificate of death from heart failure, but owing to rumours the body was exhumed and found to contain a fatal quantity of arsenic, of which Griggs had a quantity in his possession when arrested.

In a lengthy statement made to the police after he was arrested, which was read in court, Griggs admitted the strained relations with his wife over the woman named, and said that he had been guilty of misconduct with her. He also admitted that he had promised to marry her when his wife got a separation. Griggs denied giving his wife poison. Mrs Griggs’s illness was accompanied by severe vomiting and other indications of poisoning, but these at the time were attributed to a recurrence of the seasickness from which she had suffered on the voyage home from Tasmania. On the Sunday of the fatal seizure Griggs conducted services at two local churches. In his statement he declared that if his wife died of poison she must have taken it herself.

A statement made to the police by the woman, aged 20, who caused the trouble between the couple, was read in court. She admitted frequent misconduct between her and Griggs at the parsonage and elsewhere., Griggs told her that his wife was coming back only to get her things, then they were going to get a separation. Then, when things were fixed up, he would marry Medical evidence showed that more than a fatal dose of arsenic was found in Mrs Griggs’s intestines, and apparently she had more than one dose, the last one not long before death.

The doctor who attended deceased in her fatal illness gave evidence that he had formed the opinion that the vomiting was due to the rough trip from Tasmania. Under this belief he gave a certificate of death due to heart failure, following on exhaustion. When informed that his wife was dead Griggs asked for whisky, adding that her deafh had shaken him up a good deal. February 29. After further evidence had been given the coroner found that Mrs Griggs died from heart failure as a result of arsenic poisoning administered by her husband, and found him guilty of murder. COMMITTED FOR TRIAL. MELBOURNE, February 29. Griggs was committed for trial on a charge of murder. In* a letter to his wife’s mother, Griggs, after describing his wife’s sickness, says that following a short sleep, he had gone to look at his wife and found that she was dead. He adds : “ It was really a beautiful way to go She knew nothing of pain or weariness, but just fell asleep and woke in heaven, and who shall say it was not better so? Ethel is now lying in the most beautiful part of the Omeo resting place.” In another letter, he says: “ There is great comfort in knowing that Ethel was a Christian and that we have the Christian’s hope, which is the first part of that heavenly home to which all are drawing nearer day by day.” He says he is sending her mother a few things which she will treasure, including her daughter’s Bible and hymn book.

It is claimed by the police that Griggs’s married life had not been happy, due to his continued attentions to the daughter of a farmer in the Omeo district, whose family were all members of the church over which Griggs presided. Mrs Griggs had on occasions publicly alleged undue familiarity with a girl, whose father lived

at Tongio Gap. Griggs had purchased a cycle and side-car in order to cover his large district, and the frequency with which the girl was the passenger excited undesirable comment amongst his flock. In view of his wife’s actions, a section of the church congregation began to display hostility towards the young minister, for, on many occasions, Mrs Griggs had appeared in ’town in a state of acute distress, said to be due to her husband’s conduct. Once she was found lying, with her baby, on the bank of a creek, in an advanced state of hysteria. It was generally concluded that the reason for MrsGriggs g hurried visit to her parents in lasmania, which lasted for more than six months, was due mainly to the attitude her husband adopted with regard to the girl concerned. The hostility of certain members of the church reached a climax at the quarterly meeting of the Methodist circuit, held on the afternoon of the detective’s first visit to Omeo in - connection with the case. Two of the most reputable men of the district, prominent churchmen, moved and seconded a motion that, on account of conduct unbecoming to the church, the Rev. Griggs be asked to resign. Although the girl’s father was present at the meeting, they accused Griggs of undue familiarity with her. It was at this stage that one of the most dramatic incidents of the whole affair occurrred, for the father rose in strong support of Griggs, declaring that Griggs’s relations with his daughter were merely friendly. Griggs, he said, had done no thing unbecoming a clergyman of the church. It is claimed that, prior to the meeting,, the man had demanded of Griggs an explanation, and the young man had denied that there was anything between himself and the girl. Nevertheless, subsequently, he is alleged to have admitted to Detective Mulfahey that th® worst suspicions of the congregation were tiue. However, these facts did not come out at the meeting, and the chairman (ths Kev. Godbehear) ruled that, as no definite charge had been preferred against Griggs further discussion was out of order. From that time on, however, Griggs held no services in the Omeo church. Subsequent t.i the exhumation and the examination of the body by the Government analyst, traces of poison having been discovered, Griggs was arrested on a charge of murder. °