TERRIBLE TRAGEDY

Hokitika Guardian, 24 September 1928, Page 5

TERRIBLE TRAGEDY

j; A,;: MOTHER' SL A YSbsSQN,. (Australian Press Association). • ’ ' . (United Service)., , ' ‘.. A . • ; AfELBOURNE, Sept. , 22. \> John McNeill, aged 9' years,- wasl y frightfully gashed about the • throat;, J with a':razor by - his mother > while' he : lay asleep this morning at home in : ltozelle. The boy rushed screaming into the street, where he collapsed and died before medical aid could, reach him. The woman, -who was recently an

inmate of an asylum, left her husband in bed and went for a drink. Present-V ly the husband heard the screams, and- 2 he rushed out and caught his wife and. took the razor away after a struggle, r The woman was later charged with murder and was remanded for a week. A pateht-io story is told of the Rozelle tragedy, y The woman, Mrs Maitha McNeill, is said to have been suffering from re-ligious mania. The husband heard his son’s agonised cry, ‘Oh, mum, don’t ! Mum I uLV Alum ! ’ ’ When the boy’s cry trailed.; off into a choking gurgle, the husband rushed into the room and saw his wife A: standing over the boy’s bed with a razor in her hand. The father and the elder soil then grappled with the woman, and they secured her after a struggle, in which the- demented mother showed extraordinary strength. “The Lord told me to do it!” she shrieked, and later, when en route to the Reception House in an ambulance wagon, she sang hymns..