WOMAN’S SUICIDE

Southland Times, Issue 25307, 10 June 1935, Page 7

WOMAN’S SUICIDE

SEQUEL TO MURDER TRIAL.

CASE OF MRS RATTENBY.

(United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.)

London, June 7.

“If I thought it would help George Stoner I would stay on, but it has been pointed out to me, all too vividly, that I cannot help him. That is my death sentence,” wrote Mrs Rattenby in a letter addressed to the Governor of Pentonville prison which the Coroner read at the inquest. Another letter disclosed that she had tried to commit suicide under a train bus in London, but that there were too many people about. A verdict of - suicide while of unsound mind was returned.

George Percy Stoner, aged 19, was'convicted of murdering Francis Mawson Rattenby. aged 67, and was sentenced to death. Mrs Alma Victoria Rattenby, aged 31, who had been acquitted on a charge of murder, showed no emotion when she heard the sentence. But when earlier the foreman pronounced Stoner guilty, she swooned During the hearing at the Old Bailey Mrs Rattenby gave evidence and admitted relations with Stoner. She denied murdering or planning to murder her husband. Stoner’s counsel urged that Stoner was a war-time baby and was the victim of an insane and unreasoning Jealousy due to taking cocaine. The body of Mrs Rattenby was found last week in the River Stour, near Christchurch, with six wounds in the region of the heart, apparently self-inflicted. The police recovered the floating body soon after a man reported that he had seen a woman jump into the river, but it was lifeless. Several letters were found in the clothing.