Gruesome Tragedy

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 108, 30 September 1914, Page 4

Gruesome Tragedy

AUCKLAND WOMAN DONE TO DEATH.

A MANIACAL ASSAULT.

By Telegraph.—tPer Press Association. Auckland, Last Night. Bvidonce of a very gruesome tragedy was discovered early this morning by a tittle girl who was playing about in ail empty section in Upper Nelson street. In a narrow passage ait the si«!e of a building u3ed as a coffee factory she saw the apparently dead body of a woman lying ini an extended position between the corrugated iron 'wall of the factory on oim aula and a Bcoria wall which mafiks the line of the allotment .boundary. She immediately re(Ported the ghastly discovery, and he*father informed the police, witti the result that a constable who was on duty at the time was quickly on the root The woman was dead, and had apparently lieen dead for many honra The head was lying on one side, and the body was in a pool of (Mood, doe apparently, at first glance, to two Ugly 'ganhea in the woman's throat. A leather handbag was lyinft beside the body. In it were a purse containing scvenpe-nce in mpney and a receipted account. The sum of fire shillings was found loose on the ground close beflide the body. The body was subsequently identified as being that of Frances Marshall, a married woman, who lived with iher .husband in Grabtan street, Freeman's Bay. Examination discovered evidence of an apparently maniacal attack having been made on the "woman. The left jaw was 'broken, and two deep and ugly gashes in the throat 'had severed the jugular vein deep, and triangular shaped scalp wound* from the forehead to the crown indicated the ferocitv of the attack, while further invosuilgation showed that the woman's left breast had Ibeeni stabbed) in over a dozen places Iby a narrow sharp instrument, inflicting ipuoiofcures half an inch in lengbh. The seeming fury with which the injuries had been mflieted rendered the more remarkable the fact that the circumstancea in which the body was found did not in the slightest degree suggest that there had been any struggle. There were no signs -whieh would indicate that the woman had ta>rn any action to defend herself from her iissailanb, tot the nature of tiho inijuirieo was audi that apparently any one ofi them could hare rendered the Tic tint 'powerless. Charles Marshall, husband of the dead woman, described himself to the police as a fish-curer. He is not at present in work. He stated that his wife- went out last evening shortly aftev eeven o'clock, and he himself went out and down to town. He did! not know where his wife was going. When he arrived home she hadi not yet come in, and she did not come home at all that night. This morning ihe went out early to get a drink at a hotel, and the first he knew of what had happened to his wife, was when the police called at tho 'house later in the morning to inform him of the tragedy.