PREFERRED DEATH

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20541, 16 February 1935, Page 28 (Supplement)

PREFERRED DEATH

INFATUATED NURSE. COULD NOT FACE LIFE. "I GIVE ALL FOR YOU.” Rather than face life without the society of a married man with whom she was infatuated, a young nurse committed suicide by taking poison after writing a poignant letter of despair. In it she suggested her lover had thrown her over through fear that he would lose his father’s money. was referred to at the inquest held at Romford, Essex, on Mary Morris, 23, whose home was at Prospect Place, Treorchy, Glamorgan, and who was found dying in a field. The gill was formerly employed at Oldchurch Hospital, Romford, and Frank Edward Kemp, a mental attendant there, acknowledged in evidence that he was living apart from his wife because of his association with Miss Morris. Kemp added that he and Miss Morris had stayed together, and recently he sent her home, but she returned after a fortnight. On the night of the tragedy he had a telephone message from her in which she said: “Remember, I cannot live without you. lam going to do it now.” She previously showed him a bottle of disinfectant and said she intended to drink it in order to kill herself, and he tried to get the bottle from her, but did not succeed. “Money Is Not All.” He identified a. letter of Miss Morris* in which she wrote:—“God forgive you and your dad for what you have done. If you had only stood by me as you had promised, and loved me as you swore you always would! I know you love me, and are only doing this because your dad is forcing you, because you are afraid of losing his money. Frank, dear, money is not all. You must have loved me to do all that you have done. I gave up all for you and you even gave me a baby so that no other man could have me, and you did it deliberately, and now you have thrown me up because of your greed for money. lam ending it to-morrow night. Perhaps someone will make you answer and pay for this, but not with money. Perhaps your dad’s conscience will hurt him. You said you would die with me rather than lose me, but you are too much of a coward to die, but you want your dad’s money, and I trust and hope to God that someone will make (illegible) your dad and you pay for what you have done. I cannot live without you, and you must have loved me to do all that you have done. We always knew that it would end in tragedy, and perhaps you will be saved from the gallows yet. Good-bye, sweetheart. We shall meet again. I love you so. From your broken-hearted girl, Mary.” Kemp stated he understood from Miss Morris that she had been married before and her husband was dead. He believed her married name was Martin, and that she had one child, which was in a home. The coroner, Mr. C. E. Lewis, read a letter written by Miss Morris to the chief of police, Romford, in which she said: — “I got very friendly with a mental attendant by the name of Frank Kemp, and we fell madly in love with each other, so much so that we could not live without each other. He was married, and his wife came to the hospital and made a scene, after which I had to leave and we settled down living with each other.* YVe once tried to end this before oix November 19 by gassing ourselves. You can verify this from the people next door, but Frank turned back just in time.” The coroner questioned Kemp regarding this incident. “Staged” Suicide Attempt. “We staged an attempted suicide as a sort of blackmail to get my father to do something for us,” was the reply. “I did not take it seriously, nor did she at the beginning, but she became unconscious from the gas and I took her into the open and had to revive her.” The letter alleged that Kemp told the girl_ he had finished with her. Kemp denied this, but said he asked her to look for a job. George Alfred Kemp, of Romford, the father of Kemp, told of endeavouring to stop _ his son’s association with Miss Morris, which he learned of five or six weeks previously. He mentioned that lie received a letter from Miss Morris in which she claimed she and his son loved one another. She wrote: “You have no right to judge and condemn me and call me a prostitute, a girl of 23 whom you have never met.” The father declared he had never called her by that word, but he had spoken strongly about her to Other evidence showed that Misß Morris was an expectant mother, and that death was clue to the effects of poisoning. The jury returned a verdict that she took her life while of unsound mind. The coroner remarked: “So far a» Kemp is concerned the least said the soonest mended, but I think the publicwill judge for themselves.”