DOUBLE TRAGEDY AT A FARM.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 11 June 1907, Page 4

DOUBLE TRAGEDY AT A FARM.

JEALOUS LOVER'S CRIME. MURDER AND SUICIDE. A terrible tragedy, evidently the outcom? 'if a io-'c od air, has occur rod at ill'! Ri-nKery Farm, Preston Deanery, Northampton. Lewis Jones, a laborer, killed Winifred Griffiths, a domestic servant, by cutting her throat and then committing suicide by hanging. Rookery Farm is occupied by a Welsh family named Roberts, win have been there a year. They came from North West Wales, bringing with them Jones, who hailed from flaenven. Anglesey. Oriffiths. ;i dark-complexioned, pretty girl, was the sister of Mrs Roberts, and a native of Dohvyddolen, Carnarvon. Orifliths was nineteen years old, and Jones twenty-two, and both lived and slept in the farm house. Generally they rose about five in the morning. Both got up earlier than usual on the morning of April Ist. without being aroused by Mrs Roberts, but nothing was heard to indicate the terrible tragedy that was being enacted. after live Mi> Roberts went downstairs and called out for her sister. There was no response, and Mrs Roberts went out of the kitchen into the yard at the back of the house, where she saw the girl's body lying on the ground, with her bead hanging over the sink. FIXOKR-I'IUNTS IX BLOOD. TheroVas a wound in the throat extending from ear to ear, and a few feet away lay the bloodstained blade of a razor. Assistance was summoned, and a search was made for Jones. Following a trail of blood spots the searchers were led to a Dutch barn half a mile from the farmhouse. There a ladder was found leaning against the iron girders of the roof, and on the sides of the ladder were thumbmavks printed in blood. A broken rope indicated that Jones had attempted to hang himself, but had not succeeded. It was a thin guide rope used to steer horses drawing the plough, and it had been severed by the sharp edge of a girder.

Half a milp from the ham Jones was found hanging from the branch of an ash tree, into which lie had climbed, and from which, after fastening a rope to a hough and placing the noose round his neck, he had cast himself. He had not quite completed dressing, his boots being unfastened. In one of his pockets was the handle of the razor blade discovered near the girls body. THE OTHER MAN. Jealousy is supposed to have been the motive of the crime. Griffiths had not responded to the advances made by Jones, and had for the last ten days been courted by a laborer named Raine, by whom she was taken home on Wednesday night, when the pair were seen by Jones. (irilliths was evidently killed while going to the coal shed, for, although the kitchen fire had been lighted, no coals had been placed in the grate. At the impiest the jury returned verdicts of "Wilful murder' and "Felo de se" (suicide) against, Jones.