DEATH OF RELIEF WORKER

Taranaki Daily News, 1 February 1933, Page 9

DEATH OF RELIEF WORKER

TALE OF HIS POISONING TOLD. /0 THWARTED LOVE FOR YOUNG GIRL AUCKLAND INQUEST PROCEEDINGS. VERDICT GIVEN BY THE CORONER. Bj Telegraph.—Press Astociat ’.on. Auckland, Last Night. An inquest into the death of John Pringle Allen, aged 32, who died on the way to the Auckland hospital on January 11, was made by Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M. Allen was employed at a relief camp-at Waitakere . and his death narrowly escaped involving the death of Annie Florence Goodall, the daughter of the foreman of the camp. The coroner returned a verdict that Allen committed suicide by strychnine poisoning. Annie Florence Goodall, aged 16, said she had known the dead man for about ten months. “I just knew him casually as I knew all the other men,” she said. “He was always called ‘Curly.’ I knew he was a married man. About three weeks before Christmas on a Sunday morning I walked over to the. camp to get some meat for lunch. “As we were walking along the path Allen told me he loved me and had loved me for a long time. He said he could get his divorce and had. good grounds for doing so. He asked me if I would keep company with him. I told, him I was not fdnd enough of him for that, but he said I might get more fond of him later on. I told him 'that I would not and that there was no chance for him.” < ’

•The whnesfe said that as a result of Allen’s jealous behaviour at a dance on. New Year’s Eve she decided she would have nothing to do with him and she refused to make it up. On the same evening she met Allen as she was carrying home the milk and he was drunk. He caught her by the throat and said: “I ought to do to you what I am going to do to myself.” Asked what that was he said: “I am going to take a dose of poison and get out of it.”

On the evening of January 10 he showed her a bottle labelled “strychnine” which he said he was going to take, the witness continued. On the following morning he had a flask of whisky, a bottle of wine and a bag of chocolates, ! of which she ate .a few. He wanted her to have some whisky but she refused. He gave: her brother some port wine and offered some to her, saying: “Have this one. It will be the last drink we will have together.” She. drank it and he sent her brother to get some messages. As a result of the wine her head felt heavy and she went and lay down: He brought in a glass of. wine and. she was so frightened she drank it. It was bitter and tasted bitter. , Allen afterwards went into her mother’s room and called out that he had taken a dose of strychnine and was, going to die. She went to the kitchen to get some salt and water for him but ; her limbs were so stiff she could not give it to him. : A little later Allen called her and ; on her entering the bedroom in which’ he was lying down he said to her:o“I. have done what I said I would do. I have taken a dose of strychnine arid I am going to die.” Later she and Allen were taken to hospital and Allen died on the way there.