DEMENTED MOTHER’S DREAD FUL ACT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3537, 14 September 1926, Page 3

DEMENTED MOTHER’S DREAD FUL ACT.

DROWNS FOUR CHILDREN IN BATH.

TRAGEDY AT PETONE. * Wellington Sept. 13. A shocking domestic tragedy occurred at Petone on Saturday evening. Mr. Perrin, who had lived happily with his wife and five children, left home after dinner, taking one of his sons, and returned early in the evening when he was astonished to find the door locked. After persistent knocking he became alarmed and broke a window. He entered, but saw no sign of his wife and children. He called for his wife again, but got no response. He heard splashing in the bathroom, and knocked at the door. His wife emerged clad only in her underclothes, soaking wet, and rushing into the bathroom, the husband was horrified to see the body of his eldest daughter, Peggy, aged 6, floating in the bath. He pulled the body from the bath, and saw another body on the bottom. This proved to be FrancisrHamilton, a boy aged 3.

Seeing a heap of his wife’s clothes' lying on the floor, Perrin pulled these aside, and saw the bodies of two girls, Phyllis aged 2 years, and Bettie, a baby of six months old, all dead, having been drowned in the bath.

The unfortunate mother committed the dreadful act while in a state of dementia. She had suffered from ill-health for some time owing to a succession of worries, and the children being prostrated by ’flu, through which she had nursed them to recovery. MRS PERRIN REMANDED. , Wellington, Sept. 13. Dorothy May Perrin, looking frail and worn, was charged this morning before Mr. E. Page, S.M., with the murder of her four children. On the application of the police she was remanded for a week. Accused appeared perfectly calm, but seemed hardly) to realise where she was.