CHILD'S DEATH

Southland Times, Issue 20539, 16 July 1928, Page 5

CHILD'S DEATH

POISONED SWEET PROVES FATAL. OORONIAL INQUIRY HELD. The inquest into the death of Raymond Frederick Webb, aged 24 years who had died on July 3 through accidentally taking strychnine on a chocolate which had been left on a shelf in his mother’s shop, was heard before Mr G. Cruickshank, S.M. on Saturday. William Frederick Webb, a railway clerk, father of the deceased child, said that his wife kept a fruit shop on the corner of Yarrow and Dee streets, and they lived above the shop. They knew three weeks before that there was a rat which had given them trouble. They had tried in various ways to catch it by means of a trap, but always failed. On the evening of July 3, his wife put some strychnine poison which she had procured from a chemist, on a broken chocolate fish or some chocolate lolly and then put in a cupboard underneath the window show case facing Yarrow street. There was no fruit or confectionery in the cupboard, but there were nuts and soft drinks. There were two sliding doors to the cupboard. The poisoned chocolate was - behind the sliding doors on the raised floor of the cupboard. About 7 o’clock in the evening the poison was laid, but the child was not in the shop at the time. Both the doors of the cupboard were slightly open; one was open about two inches and the other behind which the chocolate lay, about five inches. The child soon after went into the shop with his mother and went behind the counter to get a lolly before going to bed. The shop was then open and someone came into the shop. After serving the customer his wife went into the banana room under the staircase. While she was absent the child must have come round to the front of the counter and then seen the opening. The chocolate was visible through it. The child was not seen to take the chocolate. His wife came back into the shop and she and the boy walked upstairs where she put him to bed. About five minutes after she heard the child cry out. He didn’t think that the chocolate was taken up bv the boy and eaten in bed or his wife would have noticed. Immediately on hearing the child cry out she went round to Dr. Garfield Crawford who came at once. The child was taken first to Dr. Crawford’s house and then to the hospital.

Dr. James Garfield Crawford gave evidence that on the evening of July 3 somewhere about 7.45 p.m., he received a telephone message from Mrs Webb asking him to stay in for a few minutes. He was unable to get any further information as the telephone receiver at the other end was put down. A few minutes after Mrs Webb came to his surgery carrying the child who was in convulsions. She said the child must have taken rat poison mentioning strychnine The condition of the child was consistent with that of strychnine poisoning. He immediately rushed Mrs Webb and the child to Cairnsmore Hospital where appropriate treatment for the condition was immediately carried out by himself and the nurses in charge.* The child did not respond to the treatment, but died at about 8.30 the same night without regaining consciousness. Further treatment was adopted for a further period of 20 minutes. Death in his opinion was due to respiratory failure and exhaustion following the taking .of strychnine poison.

Dorothy Alma Webb, after confirming the evidence of her husband and Dr. Crawford, said that when the child went to bed, he was eating something, but she did not notice what it was and thought it was the same piece as she had given him. The coroner expressed the opinion that it was a particularly sad and distressing case. He thought it was a foolish thing to put poison on sweets in the circumstances involved, but the unfortunate parents had been so broken and punished that he would

only bring in a verdict that “deceased met his death at Invercargill on July 3 through accidentally eating chocolate holding strychnine which had been laid to poison rats.”