COUPLE MURDERED AT SUPPER TABLE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18045, 4 January 1927, Page 8

COUPLE MURDERED AT SUPPER TABLE.

GRIM TRAGEDY IN SOMERSET VILLAGE. (Special to the “Star.”) LONDON, November 13. While an elderly landlady and her two men lodgers were sitting at supper in a house on the outskirts of Frome, Somerset, one of the men is believed to have risen suddenly from the table and in a fit of madness murdered the other two where they sat with blows of a hatchet and then committed suicide. 1 his tragedy was disclosed by the discovery on Saturday morning'of three bodies at 8, The Mount, Frome The dead are:--Mrs Ellen Thorne, 56. widow of a Mr Isaac Bray, 72, a widower, nierly a printers’ reader and innkeeper, and William Hoddinott, 38. single, formerly a stable-hand, of Frome. Mrs Thorne and Mr Brav were found on the floor near the table and Hoddinott in his bedroom with his throat cut. Out. of Work Since April. Hoddinott had been out of work since April, and had come to the end of his resources. He usually paid Mrs Thorne his rent on Fridays. He suffered from a fever caught during war service, and had spoken at times of committing suicide. He is said to have been concerned at the thought of having to give up his room. Mrs Penny, of Trinity Street, Frome, a sister of the dead -woman, told a “Daily Mail” reporter that, while Iloddinott behaved in a peculiar way, he had never threatened anybody or been troublesome. “At times,” she added, “he was terribly depressed, and would not answer when spoken to. On one occasion lie complained that a cup of tea and a cup of cocoa were poisoned. He did not suggest that my sister had poisoned them, but wquld not drink them. “My sister was in the habit of sitting with her back to the door, and I think that he must have entered the room and struck her where she sat. I imagine that he did not attack Mr Bray first, as my sis.ter probably would have given him more trouble than the old man.” The bodies were discovered when Mrs Strickland, a neighbour, anxious as to the absence of movement in the house, looked through the kitchen window and saw Mr Bray lying on the iloor. The inquest is to be held this afternoon.