SUICIDE AT WAIHI.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4921, 4 January 1926, Page 2

SUICIDE AT WAIHI.

A FISHERMAN'S WIFE.

FATAL STRYCHNINE DRAUGHT.

WAIHI, December 31.

Leaving her husband's Launch at 8 o’clock on Thursday morning, after visiting Tauranga the previous day, Martha McGrath, 41, wife of Thomas McGrath, a fisherman employed by H.aminond and stationed at Tanner'.! Point, Katikatl, proceeded to her cottage near the beach, where she wrote a brief note, bidding farewell to her children and stating that she was “sick of tliis life.” She then walked over to the mantelshelf and drank the contents, of a glass containing strychnine.

Having done this she informed her young daughter, who was in the room, that she was about to die and had taken poison.

The girl immediately ran out and informed her father. Dr. Short, of Waihi, who was camped at Tanner's Point, was called in and administered emetics.

The unfortunate woman, however, gradually sank, and died at 12.30. She informed the doctor that she had taken poison- to drown her sorrows. When on her way to Tauranga in the launch deceased told a young man named Edward Dye that she would not have long to live, as she was sick of life. When the launch returned to Tanner’s Point Dye heard her saying good-bye to her husband, adding, in a joking manner, that it would be the last time they ’would see her. Dye went ashore and noticed a bottle on the table marked poison, with a glass, containing dregs alongside. Deceased and her family came to the Bay of Plenty from Auckland. An inquest Was held yesterday by the coroner,, Mr W. M. Wallnutt Constable O’Neill represented the police. The coroner returned a verdict that deceased met her death by strychnine poisoning, self-administered whilst in a depressed state of mind.