SENSATION IN VICTORIA
MINISTER ACCUSED OF MURDER OF WIFE STRAINED RELATIONS ADMITTED REVELATIONS AT INQUEST By Telegraph — pfiEss Association. Copyright. (Rec. February 28, 9.30 p.m.) Melbourne, February 28. The inquest on Mrs. Griggs has been resumed at Omeo. The husband is at present in custody on a charge of murdering his wife. Evidence, showed that the relations between Griggs and his wife had become strained owing to his relations with another young woman. The wife ' went awav for a three months’ holiday, and on tlie night she returned she was taken sick after eating a meal prepared l>v her husband, who also supplied her with other food and gave her medicine which a doctor prescribed. She gradually grew worse, however, and died next day. A doctor gave a certificate of death from heart failure, but owing to rumours the body was exhumed and found to contain a' fatal quantity of arsenic, of which Griggs had a quantity in his possession when arrested. In a lengthv'• statement made to the police after he was arrested, which was read in court, Griggs, admitted strained relations with his wife over a woman (who was named), and that he had been guiltv of misconduct with her; also that he had promised to marry her when his wife got a separation. Griggs denied giving his wife poison. The case is causing tremendous local interest.
THE FATAL ILLNESS ATTRIBUTED TO SEA SICKNESS. (Rec. February.2B, 10.45 p'.m.) Melbourne, February - 28. .Mrs. Grigg’s illness was accompanied by severe vomiting and other indications of poisoning. These at the time were attributed to a recurrence of seasickness, from which she suffered on the vovage home from Tasmania.. On. Sundav, the dav of the fatal seizure, Griggs' conducted the services at two local churches. In Ins statement, he declared that if his wife died of poison she must have taken it herself. A statement, made to the police by a woman aged twenty, who caused the ■ trouble between the couple, - was read in Court. She admitted frequent misconduct between herself and Griggs at the parsonage and elsewhere. Griggs told her his wife was coming back only to get her-things, then they were going to get a separation; then when things were fixed up he said he would marry her. ’ . ~ The medical evidence showed that more than a fatal dose of arsenic was' found in Mrs. Griggs’s intestines. Apparently she had had more than one dose, the last one not long before her death. The doctor who attended deceased in her fatal illness gave evidence. He said he formed the opinion that the vomiting was due to the rough trip from Tasmania. Under this belief, he gave a certificate ot death due .to heart failure following on exhaustion. When informed that his wife was. dead, Griggs asked for a whisky, adding that her death had shaken him. up a good deal. [A .Melbourne message published early this month stated that following the death of Mrs. Ethel Griggs, in suspicious circumstances, at Omeo, the police exhumed the body and later arrested the husband, the . Rev. Ronald Griggs, Methodist minister, on a charge of murder. Griggs is not an ordained minister, but a probationer with two years’ service. He was suspended by the Methodist Conference immediately the police commenced investigations. The case has created an immense sensation in the district, where for some time the Griggs’s domestic affairs had been the subject of much discussion.]
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Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 129, 29 February 1928, Page 11
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571SENSATION IN VICTORIA Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 129, 29 February 1928, Page 11
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