THE ARMSTRONG CASE.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 May 1922, Page 11

THE ARMSTRONG CASE.

THE CASE FOR THE DEFENCE. DID HIS WIFE ALTER HER WILL’ London, April 5. This week the Armstrong case entered on a new phase, Major Armstrong came up for trial at Hereford, on charges of murdering his wife by giving her arsenic and of attempting to murder a fellowsolicitor by handing him a poisoned scone at tea. The first day’s proceedings were occupied by the opening statement of the Attorney-General, Sir Ernest Pollock. His case was that Major Armstrong, a man looked up to for the position he had earned as a trusted professional man, ami as an old Volunteer and Territorial officer, had taken his wife s life in order to possess himself of her estate, having first ensured by means of an irregularly-attested will that he should be sole executor and beneficiary. It might seem a startling thing. Sir Ernest said, to bring a charge against a man of Major Armstrong’s position, but facts, he added, were hard to get over, and would in this instance prove convincing. He recapitulated the history as already recited at other hearings <■' the case The case opened during a snowstorm, the fury of which had not prevented a queue from lining up early outside the court under umbrellas and even inside the court, in which the windows were left open, the snow swirling among the people sitting there. Major Armstrong, looking spruce and well groomed at the beginning of the day, appeared with dramatic suddenness in the dock, where he was seen standing at attention almost before the words were out of the clerk’s voice: “Bring up Armstrong.”

POISONING NOT DISPUTED. The only notable point elicited during the first day’s procedure was the admission by Sir Henry Curtis Bennett for the defence. In the course of a legal argument he said the fact that Mrs. Arm-' strong died of arsenical poisoning was indisputable. His defence was that the arsenic was not administered by the prisoner. Yesterday’s proceedings showed more clearly the line of defence that is being taken. The prosecution concentrated on establishing a motive for the crime. That motive, said the prosecutor, was desire to acquire his wife’s property. In order to obtain his end the prisoner had caused to be executed an invalid will about which his wife knew nothing. The deience promptly put up was that, in fact, Mrs. Armstrong had intended to alter her earlier will, and that the alleged bogus will of July, 1920, was in fact made with her consent and signed in her presence. MRS. ARMSTRONG S WILL. The undisputed facts, already given about the matter are that in 1917 Mrs. Armstrong drew up a will with great care, leaving her estate to her three children, and an annpity to her husband. She deposited that document with her sister, Miss Ida Friend, of Rosary Cottage, Torquay, for safe custody, and kept an epitome of its contents in her bedroom at home. A document dated July, 1920, in Major Armstrong’s handwriting and witnessed by the housekeeper and the housemaid, left everything to the husband and made him sole executor. Probate of this will was granted after Mrs. Armstrong’s death. The first witness examined was Miss Pearce, the elderly housekeeper, a stolid, dour-looKing, impassive person, whose face never seems to show any sort of emotion whatever. She stood with wideopen eyes that missed nothing, imperturbable and motionless, through several hours of severe examination. After she had testified to signing some document for Mrs. Armstrong one day in the drawing room in the presence of Major Armstrong, the Attorney-General said that it might be well to compare her evidence with her previous statements to the police. Counsel for the defence objected to this unless Miss Pearce was to be regarded as a hostile witness.

A HOSTILE WITNESS. The judge, Mr. Justice Darling, questioned her. then turning to the AttorneyGeneral, he said: “The demeanour of the witness is one of the matters by which the judge is greatly impressed, and I shall allow you to cross-examine.” Next came the housemaid, who said she had signed only one document, and that she had signed in the study when asked by Major Armstrong, who was alone then. She had however to admit to having a bad memory when confronted by a National Insurance certificate which she had signed, for she had been emphatic both in earlier examinations and yesterday in affirming that she had only signed a document once during her service in. the Armstrong household. INTENDED TO ALTER HER TOLL. That Mrs. Armstrong while at Bath in HMO had intended to alter her will because she thought she nad not left enough to her husband was borne out by Miss Friend, the repository of the will, but in letters written from the asylum just before her release and death, Mrs. Armstrong wrote of the will in her sister’s possession as her last will: “That is my last, and 1 should like A.E.C. (one of the executors) to know where it is and see it Do write to him.” In answer to the judge, Miss Friend said that her sister never wrote and asked her to send the will back. It was brought out tjiat the late Mrs. Armstrong’s, faith in homoeopathic medicines was a family characteristic. A certain brand of dinner pills. Miss Friend said, had been taken “in the family for years,” and at Mayfield there was quite a store of bottles for the doctoring of the family. On her return from the asylum Mrs. Armstrong told the district nurse that never again would she take any medicine, other than her own homoeopathic remedies, as they had “poisoned her with drugs at the asylum.” She asked if it would mean death if ■anyone threw himself out of the window, The nurse regarded this talk as a symptom of her patient’s mental disorder. Miss Pearce had also been asked by her mistress, who had been on a journey up to the attic, if anybody throwing themselves from the window would break their back* , ■Since the mail left Armstrong has ’«tmi found xcuilfcv and sentenced to be