WOUNDS IN ARMS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20088, 7 November 1939, Page 7

WOUNDS IN ARMS

MAN AND WOMAN CITY HOTEL DRAMA RUSHED TO HOSPITAL WIFE FOUND DEAD HEAD IN GAS OVEN (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day. With wounds in the arms, Francis Leonard Laurie, aged 30, a storeman employed at the naval base, and Annie Josephine Laycock, aged 35, the wile of David Laycock, employed by tlie Devonport Ferry Company, were removed from a bedroom at the Station Hotel at 8.30 this morning and sent to hospital. Mrs. Laycock had a severe wound on tlie right forearm and her condition is reported to be serious through loss of blood. Laurie had a. wound in his left forearm. Ilis condition is reported to be satisfactory.

It is understood that Laurie and Mrs. Laycock booked in at the hotel about lunch time yesterday and also that when a housemaid knocked on the door at 6.45 with tlie morning tea, an instruction was called from the room in a man’s voice to take the breakfast tray to the room at 8.30. Returning with the tray at ‘that time, a housemaid found the door locked. She unlocked the door with a pass key and found Laurie on the bed and Mrs. Laycock on the floor, both bleeding profusely. A doctor and the police were called immediately. When the ’police visited Laurie’s home, Egremont street, Belmont. North Shore, they found Mrs. Laurie lying on the floor of the kitchen, clad in a pink nightdress and cardigan, with her head in a gas oven. She was cTead. She had left a note in tlie course of which she had bequeather her property.