DRAMA OF DEAD WIFE IN DITCH

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20422, 12 February 1938, Page 14 (Supplement)

DRAMA OF DEAD WIFE IN DITCH

Husband Found Gassed in All-Electric House

Tragedies Recall Court Case

Walking along a lonely road in WestclifT, South-end, two schoolboys came across the body of a young, fairhaired woman lying face downwards in a ditch. Police officers summoned to the of the tragedy—PrittleweJl Chase—recognised the dead woman as the plaintiff in a matrimonial case al Southend a few days previously. There was an immediate consulta-

tion. Officers were sent in search of j 1 the husband. They called at his, : home. They smelt gas, broke down j a door and found the man dead in a j ' gas-filled room. The victims in this extraordinary j ; drama were : Mrs Elsie Frances Jarvis. 29, of! Colchester Close, Southend; and ; Leonard James Jarvis, 33, a corpora-I tion employee, who lived at Feechers ( Road, PrittlewelL The couple were married three 1 years ago, after a brief courtship, and the husband was said to be very j jealous of his pretty wife, who worked : as a waitress at a Kursaal fun-fair j during the summer. They Had a Quarrell About a month ago they had a quar- i rel. and Mrs Jarvis left her husband. J The next stage in the couple's affairs was reached at Southend Matrimonial Court, where Mrs Jarvis obtained a maintenance order of 25s a week. She alleged cruelty against! her husband. Owing to allegations made by Mrs ; Jarvis in the Matrimonial Court, the j husband was, .at the conclusion of the i evidence, arrested and charged with j breaking into some cottages and steal- j ing money. « Jarvis was remanded on bail ou condition that he kept away from his wife. * Jarvis was_apparently last seen alive about noon "”on the day the two tragedies were discovered. ! He had not been to work, and was standing at a street corner smoking a cigarette. It appears that Mrs Jarvis left her lodgings to go for a walk, from which she never returned. Reported Missing . She had been reported missing beJ fore her body was found, i She was lying fully clothed in the i I ditch, with her head pressed into the j ground. I There were Indications that she had been dragged some distance to the 1 j spot. Her stockings were torn, as! j though by brambles. ! There was a slight trickle of blood' | from the woman’s nostrils, and it is j thought that a post-mortem examina- J j tion will show that she was strangled.' An istonisl • g fi ituie of Jarvis’s' ; death was that he lived In an all- | electric house, with no gas actuallv j connected to it. “ j | Jarvis had pushed aside the furni- j ; ture, ripped up the carpet, and pulled j up the side iloorboards to get to a i i l i |n eas-main. This he had pierced and let the full strength of the gas llood the room, j j The woman with whom Mrs Jarvis ; lodged in Colchester Close said that 1 Mr and Mrs Jarvis had seemed a deI voted couple, although thev occasionally quarrelled. ; When Mrs Jarvis left to go for a' ! walk." the woman continued. • 1 arj ranged to meet her three hours later at Southend. i She did no* mention that she might meet her husband.'’ »