MOTHER'S DEATH FROM FRIGHT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 840, 17 May 1910, Page 4

MOTHER'S DEATH FROM FRIGHT.

UFK SENTENCE PASSED ON HER SON. John White, the Coventry toolgrinder who was accused of murdering his aged mother by frightening her to death, was found guilty of attempted murder at the Birmingham Assizes recently, and was sentenced to penal servitude lor liie. White, who wished to obtain his mother’s money, gave her a solution of cyanide of potassium in a glass. The poison was not strong enough to kill, but the theory is that when Mrs White smelt and tasted it she died from fright. "I shall tell the jury that on the medical evidence they ought not to find While guilty of murder,” Mr Justice Darling slated. “The question is whether he is guilty ot attempted murder. “Eor him to be convicted of attempting to murder it is necessary that he should have mixed the poison and administered it with his own hands. He might be convicted even if she was still alive, and the question whether she dies of poison or not is immaterial.

“If a man fired a pistol to kill and missed he would still be guilty of attempted murder. “With regard to the smallness of the dose, it is notorious in history that poison will kill slowly. It is for the jury to say whether the mixture represented the first, second, 01 perhaps the ultimate stage of a murderous scheme. “The jury will remember the mother’s indignation when she learnt on a previous occasion that Her son had given her laudanum. They lasted a mixture of cyanide of potassium, and will agree that it is most offensive. Anyone taking it in the belief that it was lemonade would receive a very severe shock.” After White had been found guilty it was stated that he had been accused ol attempting to murder his wife, but acquitted, but that he had threatened another woman with a revolver. “Yon have been convicted on evidence that to my mind is perfectly satisfactory,” the judge told him. “I should be wanting in my duty if I did not pass on you the heaviest possible sentence.”