TRAGIC FATE OF RICH WIDOW.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXVI, Issue 18439, 24 March 1922, Page 8

TRAGIC FATE OF RICH WIDOW.

TO UNDERSTUDY GLADYS COOPER. SON OF FIVE IN NEW ZEALAND. LONDON, January 27. A sad story was told yesterday at an inquest in Hammersmith on Mrs Irene Welsh, 35, whose body in a nightdress was found on Satururday morning outside a private hotel in Lexingham Gardens, Kensington. Mrs Esther Hannah Kingtman, of Westhill, Wandsworth, said Mrs Welsh had been worried about money. The Coroner (Mr H. R. Oswald): In what way?—She did not tell me. She had been fleeced before. She had £3 000 two years ago last November, and I understood from what she said that it had all *one as well as her pension. The New Zealand Government were very good to her. They gave her a pension for two rears after her second marriage. Her first husband, who was in the New Zealand forces, was killed in the war. Have you any idea how she lost her money?—Yes, Someone persuaded her to invest £5OO for the benefit of her little boy Anthony, aged five, who is in New Zealand. One lot of money went that way. Three months after she told me that it was no good at all. To use her words: “It was a washout.” Was it something fraudulent?— Yes. It was. There were heaps of other things like that. Had she been promised high interest?—Yes. High interest always goes with bad security?—Yes. Then someone else introduced her to a theatrical agent, and he told her she was to be understudy to Miss Gladys Coopper whom she was told she resembled very much. She paid the man fifty guineas and there was nothing in it. I went with her to the East End, but we could not find the man. Was she highly strung?—Yes. She was a very reserved and silent woman. She was a very proud woman. She told me she was weary, and she wished she could get something to do. Other evidence showed that Mrs Welsh must have jumped over a balcony. The coroner returned a verdict of suicide while of unsound mind.