A POISON PLOT

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9437, 6 May 1909, Page 6

A POISON PLOT

HOW A DOG DIED.

Sensational evidence was giveir by a woman at Donegal Assizes l concerning a plot to poison her husband. <A well-to-do farmer named John Tees was on his trial for inciting Catherine Buchanan, to poison her husband . David Buchanan by administering strychnine. Mrs Buchanan was . sentenced to 20 years’ penal servitude last summer, and while in prison she made a confession implicating Tees, who, she alleged, repeatedly urged her ta poison the old man, her husband, who is 70 years of age. She declared that she committed the crime entirely at Tees’instigation. A startling, feature of the case was.that, although Mr Buchanan actually took the poison, he recovered after a severe illness, his escape being attributed to the enormous quantity of poison administered. An analyst stated that it was nothing short of a marvel that the old man had recovered. _ ■ According to the evidence of David Buchanan and other witnesses on Tuesday, be and bis wife bad become estranged in their relationship, possibly because the woman was many years the old man's junior.. At any rate, Tees haunted the place to snoh an extent that one , of tbp Buchanan hoys, a lad of 18, tried ta stop the “goings on,” it was alleged* by shooting at Tees one night when he was walking round the bouse. Finally, old Bnobauan issued awrit against Tees, > claiming £looo' damages, in connection with his relationship with Mrs Buchanan.. That case was tried at Derry Assizes, and the old man’s claim was* endorsed by the jury to the full amount. POISON IN THE MILK. There was a thrill of- excitement when the convict Catherine Buchanan was called. Speaking In m ; low voice, she' said she had been married to David Buchanan for 89 years. After th« morning of the issue of the writ on Tees by h» husband the accused met her and offered her a bottle of poison. Tees told her that her husband “could put her out cf the land and take it s (the land) from her.” At this statement there was a laugh raised in the middle of the Court, and witness angrily retorted, “There is nothing to laugh at. It 1 is the truth.” Mrs Buchanan, proceeding, said the accused repeatedly asked her to poison her husband. At first she refused to do so, but he ultimately overcame her scruples, and she consented, and took possession of the poison. When he thought she had • bad time to giye the poison he hurried across the fields to learn if she bad carried out his command. Mis Buchanan told him she had not, and the prisoner thereupon instructed her to place the poison in cream and sugar, and leave it in a howl, adding “DonJt miss him to-morrow morning.” Mrs Buchanan added that Tees said to her that after taking the poison her husband would immediately die. Then he said : “Put the empty iu| his pocket, after he is dead, and the police and the doctor will come to the conclusion that he has committed suicide. ' and nothing will happen to you. ” She got the poisonon a Sunday“and 1 , administered it- to* her husband two days afterwards; ■' Her husband complained of a bittertaste in the milk, and after , he bad partaken of some witness took the* bowl and threw the the* doorstep. A ding licked this up and died shortly afterwards. Witness* afterwards poured the remainder of the poison down a crevice In an outhouse, and smashed the phial. She decided to confess on the morning after her conviction, and she did, so quite voluntarily. . For the'defenoe Mr John O’Oonnor said there was no corroboration of the story told by Mrs Bnobauan, and he maintained that the jury were* bound, from her own admissions, to< disbelieve, her. He ridiculed theIdea that she now came forward in a spirit of repentance, and maintained that her motive was to, issue a petition, in- conviction/of the prisoner, to the;. Grown for olemenoy on the ground that she had been forced by Tees to act as she did. Mr Justice Kenny said they started off with the fact that the woman was a moral murderess, who had, according to her own confession (an unparalleled one in Ireland), done her best to poison her bnsband. The crime was one of the most subtle and Ipsidions character, and' it was important to society and the community that if Tees was the instigator of it he should not go unpunished. . As was the case at the first trial of Tees, the jury disagreed, and prisoner was pat hack. -