AGAINST HIS MOTHER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 370, 2 June 1928, Page 9

AGAINST HIS MOTHER

CHILD CALLED TO GIVE EVIDENCE HUSBAND-MURDER ALLEGED (United F.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian Press Association.) (Received 9.5 a.m.) LONDON, Friday. The prosecution of Mrs. Pace, for the alleged murder of her husband, has opened at Coleford. The Prosecutor said Pace was a man of peculiar temperament. He attacked his wife with tongc- on Christmas Day. When the daughter intervened, Pace picked up a razor and threatened the family. At least three doses of arsenic had been administered between Christmas Day and Pace’s death. Mrs. Pace bought two packets of sheepdip on July 22, 1927. After her husband's death the police found only one- packet. They also found a bottle containing liquid in which there was arsenic. Leslie, the nine-year-old son of the Paces, who referred to them as “Dad” and “Mam” gave evidence for the prosecution. He said that when his father came from the hospital he asked Leslie to bring the sheep-dip box to the bedroom, where the father put it in a chest of drawers. He told how the father on Christmas day flourished a razor, saying he would cut all their throats. Frederick Thorne, a constant visitor to Pace throughout his illness, said the wife left nothing undone to assist his recovery. She was dutiful and devoted every day. Pace never complained about her. When Pace came from hospital and was placed in her care he improved rapidly.

Mrs. Harry Face is the tragic widow of Gloucestershire. On January 10 her husband died. and. following representations made by blown relatives, the funeral was stopped and a coroner’s inquest opened. An English newspaper correspondent recently wrote:— “I found Mrs. Face in the threeroomed cottage in the hills where her husband died. It is on the outskirts of a mining village three miles from Coleford. where the inquest is being held. Sla*r heaps scar the surrounding forest, and a muddy path leads to the lonely hut “Mrs. Pace has existed on relief front the guardians and the little help h*-.-friends gave her. She is 36 years of age. is still good-looking, and has had !<• children, of whom five, three boys and two girls, are still alive. They are al] living with their mother and dependent on her. Mrs. Face was nursing the youngest, a baby a few months old suffering from water on the brain. “‘I never know whether it will live from day to day,’ she said, rocking herself to and fro. “I was a strong woman once. I was strong when Harry died, bur I can hardly see you now. My eyes are failing through worry and I am nearly blind. I cannot sleep. I cannot work while this case drags on. “ They have not even he.ard my side « f it in Court yet. I could have given evidence at first, but I do not know whether I have the strength now.’ ”