HUSBAND ON TRIAL FOR WIFE MURDER

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6545, 29 February 1928, Page 7

HUSBAND ON TRIAL FOR WIFE MURDER

Body Exhumed; Found Arsenic Administered STRAINED RELATIONS ADMITTED [By Electric Cable-Copyright] (Aust. and N.Z. Cable Association.] (Received Tuesday 9.30 p.m.) MELBOURNE, Feb. 28. The inquest on Mrs Griggs was. resumed. at Omeo. The. husband is at present in custody 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. Tbo 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 supplied her with other food and gave her medicine which the doctor prescribed. But she gradually grew worse and died the next day. The doctor gavo a certificate of death from heart failure, but owing to rumours the body was exhumed and found to contain a fatal quantity of arsenic, of which Griggs had a quantity in his possession when ar rested. A Woman Between. In a lengthy statement made to the police after he 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 misconduct 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 of sea sickness from which she suffered on the voyage home from Tasmania. v 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 Court. Sho admitted frequent misconduct between her and Griggs at the parsonage and elsewhere. Griggs told her his wife was coming back only to get her things, then they were going to get, a separation. Then when things were fixed up he would marry her. Medical evidence showed that more than a fatal dose of arsenic was found in Mrs Griggs’ intestines. Apparently she had more than one dose, the last one not long before death. The doctor who attended deceased in her fatal Illness gave evidence that ho formed the opinion the vomiting was duo to the rough trip from Tasmania. Under this belief he gave a certificate that death was duo to heart failure following on exhaustion. When informed his wife was dead Griggs asked for whisky, adding that her death had shaken him up a good deal Following the death of Mrs Ethel Griggs in suspicious circumstances at Omeo, the police exhumed the body and on February 2nd arrested the husband Ronald Griggs, on a charge of murder. Griggs was at first reported to be a Methodist minister, but subsequently it was stated that Griggs was not an ordained minister, but a probationer with two years’ service. He was suspended by the Methodist Conference immediately the police commenced investigations. The case has created an immense sensation in tho Omeo district, where for some time past the Griggs’ domestic affairs have been tho subject of much dls cussion.