PATHETIC SUICIDE

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXV, Issue 148, 8 June 1935, Page 5

PATHETIC SUICIDE

Rattenby Murder Sequel WOMAN STABBED & DROWNED (Received 8, 10.30 a.m.) LONDON, June 7. ‘‘lf I thought it would help Stoner, I would stay on; but it has been pointed out to me all too vividly that I cannot help him. That is my death sentence,” wrote Mrs. Rattenby m a letter addressed to the Governor of Pentonville Prison which the coroner read at the inquest into her death. Another letter disclosed that Mrs. Rattenby tried to commit suicide under a train and a bus in London, but there were too many people about. A verdict of suicide while of unsound mind was returned. The body of Mrs, Rattenby, who was acquitted when tried on a charge of murdering her husband, was found in the river Stour, near Christchurch, England, with six wounds in the region of the heart, apparently self-inflicted. Police recovered the floating body soon after a man reported that ho had seen a woman jump into the river, but the body was lifeless. Several letters were found in her clothing. A farm hand related that Mrs. Rattenby removed her fur coat. He then saw a knife in her hand. She immediately jumped into the water. He was a non-swimmer. He tried to grasp her feet, but she drifted away in the water. A bloodstained dagger and sheath and a letter referring to Stoner, who was sentenced to death for the murder, were found in her handbag. A cable dated May 31 stated that after a trial at the Old Bailey lasting five days, George Percy Stoner, aged 19, was found guilty of murdering Francis Mawson Rattenby, aged 67, a retired architect, on March 24. Mrs. Alma Victoria Rattenby, aged 31, who was jointly charged with the murder, had already been acquitted. She showed no emotion when she heard the verdict of her acquittal, but when later the foreman of the jury pronounced Stoner guilty:she swooned.