MRS HEARN MAY NOT BE POISONER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19238, 27 November 1930, Page 1

MRS HEARN MAY NOT BE POISONER.

CORONER RETURNS OPEN VERDICT AT INQUEST. (United Press Assn.— By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) (Received November 27, 11.20 a.m.) LONDON, November 26. “I have not the slightest doubt that Mrs Alice Thomas died from arsenic poisoning. She had a big dose at the beginning of her illness, and probably a second dose later,” said Dr Lister, who attended her. The doctor added: “It looked as if the poison were not administered by chance, so I ordered her removal to hospital.” The Coroner, in summing up, expressed the opinion that there was no evidnee to show that the arsenic was taken accidentally or suicidally. Mrs Thomas was over-ill to take a second dose. Also, he added, there was no reason for suicide as she was happily married, a*nd there was no evidence of motive for the administration of the poison by the husband or Mrs Hearn, who was equally a friend of both Mr and Mrs Thomas. There was no evidence of the husband’s guilty association with Mrs Hearn, while his actions during his wife’s illness were incompatible with guilt. The husband might have been indiscreet to have Mrs Hearn frequently visiting the farm and causing gossip, and also "with lending her £3B, but indiscretions were not c There was no evidence that Mrs was contemplating becoming a second Mrs Thomas. Although there was a strong assumption that she administered the poison, there was no evidence that she indicated which sandwich Mrs Thomas should take, or that she poisoned the other food. Mrs Hearn’s letter was capable of two constructions, one of which was fear at Parsons’s remarks, but it was strange that she jumped to the conclusion that Mrs Thomas was poisoned before the analyst’s report. The evidence also contained things in her favour. A verdict was reutrned that death was due to poisoning, .there being insufficient evidence to indicate by whom it was administered. The death of Mrs Alice Thomas, wife of a Cornish farmer, was followed by the disappearance of her friend, Mrs Annie Hearn. Mrs Thomas died in a Plymouth hospital on November 3, of what an autopsy revealed to be arsenical poison, and Mrs Hearn disappeared from her home, nearby, on November 19. Mrs Hearn had described herself as the widow of a Sheffield doctor, but a doctor with a name identical with that given by her denied knowledge of her. The man Parsons referred to in the Coroner’s summing up was Percy Parsons, Mrs Thomas’s brother, who said after the funeral: “ This is a poisoning case and must be cleared up.” Evidence at the inquest showed that the Thomases and Mrs Hearn went for a picnic to Bude, where they ate sandwiches, after which Mrs Thomas became very ill. Mr Thomas was also ill, but a whisky cured him. All efforts to find Mrs Hearn have failed.