TRAGEDY IN AUSTRALIA.

Mt Benger Mail, 26 October 1938, Page 1

TRAGEDY IN AUSTRALIA.

“DEATH PUZZLE.” PEOBLEM FOE COUET. £IOOO AWAITING OWNEE. The “death puzzle” will soon be presented for solution to Mr Justice Nicholas, in the Sydney Probate Court. More than £IOOO awaits the next-of-kin of Edward Summerhayes, aged 54. On September 17, 1936, the dead bodies of Summerhayes and his wife were found in a William Street flat, near King’s Cross. Death was due to poisoning. A flat in the same building was being fumigated, and fumes of a certain poison leaked into the Summerhayes’ flat. Fumigators rang the bell at every flat in the block to warn tenants of what was being done. The Summerhayes couple did not answer their doorbell. Summerhayes’ will left his £6OO estate to his wife. Her will left her £SOO estate to him. The law of New South Wales presumes that, in the absence of evidence to prove otherwise, the husband died first. His estate would then pass to his wife and, on her death, to her next of kin. Mrs Summerhayes was the only child of United States parents, now also deceased. An American-wide search by Messrs Perry and Son, of Sydney, solicitors for the Public Trustee, has failed to trace her next-of-kin. However, two brothers of Mr Summerhayes have been found in New South Wales.

To establish the claim of these two brothers, the solicitors will endeavour to prove that Mrs Summerhayes died first.

It will be argued that the wife collapsed in the kitchenette and that her husband got out of bed to go to her aid.

He was pulling on his trousers in the living room, it is deduced. whermhe, too, was overcome hy the cyanide fumes.