POISONING TRAGEDY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19731, 28 December 1926, Page 2

POISONING TRAGEDY

SON KILLS MOTHER DEPRESSION AND SUICIDE CLEVER DOCTOR’S SAD END SYDNEY, Dec. 16. One of the most poignant tragedies that have occurred in Sydney of recent years was enacted in the early hours of last Sunday morning in a clever young doctor’s residence lat Dulwich Hil, a suburb of Sydney. Mother and son, the former bed-rid-den for four years and the other the victim of depression, were found dead. Mrs Sarah Kosier Paling, aged 59 years, was lying dead on a bed. and the body of her son, Dr. John Mark Anthony Paling, 30 yours of age, was on the floor. Police reports indicated that the son had killed his mother by injections of poison from a hypodermic needle, and then drank poison himself. Dr. Paling, in conversation with several fneuds, also doctors, at his home early on Saturday evening, remlarked that be had been feeling very depressed, and that things would have to come to an end. At 1.45 a.m. the next morning Dr. Northcote, one of the friends to whom the remark had been made, was called by telephone to Dr. Paling’s home by one of two sisters named Payton, relatives of Dr. Paling and his mother, who had been living with the last-named for several years. Miss I’ayton told Dr. Northcote by telephone that Dr. Paling had been behaving curiously, and- that he had disappeared. The door leading to Mrs. Paling’s room. Miss Payton added, was locked. Dr. Northecote hurried to Dulwich Hill and on arrival at Dr. Paling’s residence gained admittance to the locked bedroom by climbing through a window. Mrs. Paling, who was an invalid and suffered from attacks of melancholia, was dead on the bed, and Dr. Paliiig was lying on the floor, also dead. In Mrs. Paling’s arm were two broken needles, by means of which hydrocy-in ic acid had bce’n injected to her body. There was evidence that Dr. Paling had taken some of the same poison, and 1 empty phials were on the floor near the bed. Miss Payton told the' police that the funb'.- v.ent to bed at halfpast nine, on Saturday evening. Waking later, she heard noises and, tip-toe-ing out, saw Dr. Paling moving restlessly through the house* in pyjamas and dressing gown. Becoming alarmed, it was then she telephoned Dr. Northcote. Dr. Paling had a brilliant career at Sydney University, where he was a fellow student of the late Profe’ssor John Irvine Hunter, who was cut off short in a splendid career by a sickness in London last year. Both entered the university in 1914 from the same school. Dr. Paling came' out higher in their early examinations than Professor Hunter. He identified himself with university activities. He did important research work on goitre in London after graduation and, owing to the sud den illness of his mother—which brought him back—his way to the highest medical degrees in London was undoubtedly stopped. Dr. Paling was recognised as one of the ablest of the young physicians of Sydney. How carefully he planned to relieve his mother from her suffering and to follow' her 1o death could be judged from the fact that he had arranged all his personal papers for examination by his solicitors. He had paid all his bills, down to the smallest household item.