HUSBAND’S SUICIDE

Taranaki Daily News, 11 April 1930, Page 15

HUSBAND’S SUICIDE

BELIEVED WIFE DEAD. SEQUEL TO MOTOR ACCIDENT. London, April 2. Frederick Butler, manager of a butcher’s shop at Cork, grief-stricken because he thought his wife had been killed in a motor accident, shot himself dead wtih a revolver. The irony of the tragedy lay in the fact that Mrs. Butler had merely been stunned. She soon revived after treatment. A policeman patrolling the North Road, near Newark, at midnight, saw a motorcar in a ditch with its lights burning, while two men, one of whom was Butler, were searching for Butler’s wife, who they believed was under the car. Butler was feverishly running from side to side, shouting, "Rene, Rene, where are you?” The policeman joined in the search, and climbing a hedge into a cornfield, found Butler’s wife dazed.

He wp,s restoring her to consciousness when he heard two reports which ho believed at the time were caused by tyres bursting. Later he assisted Mrs. Butler to the roadway, only to find that Butler had committed suicide.