PRISON DRAMA

Grey River Argus, 21 April 1911, Page 8

PRISON DRAMA

JiEAUTIFUL WOMAN'S DEATH. Mr Travers Hunphreys, the wellknown Treasury counsel, recently returned to London from Kingston Jamaica, . where lie was engaged in a murder trial, which he described as one of the most dramatic cases in his experience. Arthur Norman Verley, aged 21, the son of a wealthy planter who- is president of the Jockey Ciub' in Jamaica and well known throughout the island, was charged with the murder, by poison, of a singlarly beautiful woman of 28, named Florence Roßinson, the wife of a Kingston solicitor. The two had known each other for some years. Mrs Robinson was found dead in the clearing! of a wood near Kingston last November. The evidence given at the trial showed that on the morning of the discovery of the body Verley called at a friend's house in Kingston very ill and suffering from morphia poisoning. He said that he had left Mrs Robinson dead, at the spot Avhere her body was subsequently, found. The ' prosecution submitted that Verley (had confessed ! that he and Mrs Robinson were in love with each other and had agreed to commit suicide together. It was proved for the prosecution that he had bought forty grains of morphia in Kingston on the day he met Mrs Robinson. For the defence, Mr Travers Humphreys submitted that Verley had repented of his decision and had not given Mrs Robinson the poison he had admittedly bought, but that she had some morphia in her possession "which' she took while his tact was turned. The jury took this view of the case and acquitted the prisoner.