HUSBAND ON TRIAL FOR WIFE MURDER.

Levin Daily Chronicle, 29 February 1928, Page 7

HUSBAND ON TRIAL FOR WIFE MURDER.

.STRAINED RELATIONS ADMITTED (Received Tuesday 9.30 p.m.) MELBOURNE, Feb. 28, The inquest bn Mrs Griggs was resumed at odheo. - The husband is at present in cusdody on a charge of murdering his -wife. - The evidence showed that relations .between Griggs and his wife were strained owing to his relations with .another young woman. The wife went away for three months holiday. The night she returned she was taken sick after (-eating a meal prepared by her husband, who also suprested. A Woman Between. The doctor gave a certificate of •death from heart failure, but owing to rumours the body was exhumed /" -thd found to contain a fatal quantity of arsenic,' of which Griggs had a •quantity in his possession when ar plied her with other food and gave her medicine which the doctor pre.scribed. But she gradually grew worse .and died the next day. In a lengthy statement made to the •police after ho was arrested, which •was read in Court, Griggs admitted strained relations with his wife over • a woman named and that he had been •guilty of misfcqnduct with her; also that he had promised to marry her when his wife got a separation. Griggs denied giving his wife poison. . The case is causing tremendous local interest. Mrs Griggs’ illness was accompanied by severe vomiting and other indications of poisoning. ; These at the time were attributed to a recurrence -cf sea sickness from’which she suffered on the voyage'home from Tasmania. Preached That Sunday. On Sunday, the day. of the fatal .seizure Griggs conducted service at two local churches. In his statement he declared that if his wife died of poison she must have taken it herself. A statement made to the police by a ,woman aged twenty, who caused the trouble between the couple, was read in f Ctourt. j. , Bhe “admitted frequent misconduct between her and Griggs at the parsonAige and elsewhere. Griggs ,told her his wife, was cbmjng back only to get h'er things, . thenthey were ; going to get a separation. Then when things were fixed up he would marry her. Medical evidence showed that more than a fatal dpse. of arsenic was found id Mrs Girigga’ intestines. Apparently she had more than one dose; the last to the Foreign Office but from 1916-19 mfe-not. long before death. - " 2p doctor ‘who attended deceased :ih hbr fatid Illness gave evidence that he formed the opinion the vomiting -was. dtie raania. Under this belief he gave a ‘ 1 bdaf h was duo to .heaft,. failure following on exhaustion. %|ken {nformbd his wife was dead •Griggs asked for whisky, adding that hbr’ 1 death bad shaken him up a good •deal. • Following' the death of; Mrs Ethel in suspicious circumstances at the police dxhuriied 1 the body -and on February 2nd arrested the husband Ronald Griggs, on a charge. -bus subsequently it was stated that Griggs -was 'not an ordained minister, but a probationer with .two .years’ service .Ho was' suspended-by the 'Methodist 'Conference immediately the police c-omhiehced ihvisßtlgdflcihs, The case ituis created an immense sensation in ; the Omoo district, where for some time past the Griggs’ doihestic affairs have been the subject of , much dis , vcuaeloii. , .