"MURDER AND SUICIDE”

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 85, 1 July 1927, Page 13

"MURDER AND SUICIDE”

CORONER’S VERDICT CHRISTCHURCH TRAGEDY DAVIS JEALOUS AND MOODY (Special to THE SUN.) CHRISTCHURCH, Thursday. That Frederick Charles Davis murdered his 19-year-old wife, Edith May Davis, with a razor, and then committed suicide, was the verdict recorded by the coroner, Mr. E. D. Mosley, this afternoon. \TERA WILSON, Mrs. Davis’s sister, V w ho lived with .he Davis family, told the coroner that her sister and brother-in-law came home about 11.40 p.m. on Saturday. Miss Wilson was just getting into bed when her sister came in and said, -Do you know what, Fred said? He told me that Monday will be my last lay on earth.’’ “What are you going to do?" her sister asked. Mrs Davis replied, "Oh, that's nothing,” and laughed it off. Witness did not hear anything more until i -m., when Dorothy Finnie, who slept in the same room, said, “I think there is something wrong. I hear Fred moaning in the kitchen.” She heard a scream and later there was a smel! of gas, but both girls thought it was imagination. The gas fumes grew so strong however that it was necessary to open the window. "We were too dumbfounded to get out of bed,” Miss Wilson added. On June 3 Mrs. Davis went to Timaru for 10 days with Miss Finnie, taking the baby with her. To Mr. Burns, who appeared for the relatives of Mrs. Davis, Miss Wilson explained that her sister had gone to Timaru with her husband’s permission. Davis was very jealous. When in Auckland he had written letters to his wife. He was very quiet (or a few days after his return. Dorothy Finnie corroborated this evidence and added that Davis and his wife were a very happy couple, although Davis was moody at times. She had gone to Timaru with Mrs. Davis and while there the two had stayed with the witness’s mother. She was not aware that her brother had been a good deal in Mrs. Davis’s company in Timaru. Witness returned to Christchurch on June 4. Her brother did not know Mrs. Davis before her visit to Timaru. Fanny Salter, Davis’s sister, who lives in Hereford Street, said that about 11 a.m. on Sunday she found a suitcase in the wash-house and a note saying, "Dear Fan, please leave this here until Monday morning.—Fred.” On Monday she received a letter trom her brother and two other letters were enclosed. Her brother had always enjoyed good health, she said, and had never mentioned anything about suicide. Constable Irwin, who was called to the scene on the morning of the tragedy, said that he saw no signs of a struggle.