AN EXTRAORDINARY ACQUITTAL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10058, 1 June 1910, Page 3

AN EXTRAORDINARY ACQUITTAL.

One of the strangest murder trials in the history of Massachusetts has reached a surprising conclusion at Boston through the acquittal and complete exoneration of Mrs Mary Kelliher, who for fifteen months languished in gaol on charges of poisoning her husband, her three children, her sister, and her sister-in-law, says the "Daily Mail" New York correspondent. When her daughter Catherine died in July, 1908, after five others of the family had mysteriously succumbed within a period of three years, a post mortem examination was held. It disclosed THE PRESENCE OF ARSENIC IN j THE BODY. Immediately the authorities ordered an exhumation of the other five bodies. In all of them arsenic was found. Mrs Kelliher was arrested. All,of them had died after periods of illness ranging from a few days to six weeks, and the deaths all occured in Sonaerville, where Mrs Kelliher then lived. Mrs Kelliher was at first indicted for Killing four persons with arsenic, - but, after further investigations, two more were added, and she was tried for slaying six. Mrs Kelliher still has one child living—little Tommy, eight old —who is cared for by her husband's relatives. It is a peculiar fact that money for her defence is said to have been provided by brothers of her husband. Ever since the disclosures there j have been rumours of a male accom | plice, who profited by the insurance money, and from time to time the newspapers have stated tnat the police were on the point of apprehending him and placing him under arrest. These stories of some one who got the money have gained credence from the fact that, though Mrs Kelliher received considerable life insurance money, none of it has ever been located. What she has done with it is a mystery which she will not explain. She had two prominent laVyera as counsel, and they have fought her case persistently. , EXAMINED BY CHEMISTS. It is now some fifteen ' months siDce she was arrested. Since she was indicted for alleged wholesale poisoning she has been under the eye of alienists much of the time, but she has persistently asserted that she is not insane, and even her attorneys have not been anxious to take advantage of the insanity' dodge,™ which has led to the theory that perhaps they have, as they assert, some evidence, which will exculpate their client. The commission of alienists which had been appointed to examine Mrs kelliher reported that they found her sane, and that she was also sane at the time the deaths occurred. The chain of circumstantial evidence was seemingly complete, when the district Attorney, Mr Higgins, ORDERED AN INVESTIGATION , OF THE BEDROOM where all the deaths had occurred. The mattress on which the invalids had lain was torn apart, and its contents cleared the mystery. In the hair considerable quantities of arsenic were discovered, and experts at the trial declared that those who used the mattress must have inhaled the poison in small particles during their sleep. Mr 3 Kelliher, who has been aged by her successive bereavements and subsequent imprisonment, has gained her freedom only to find herself destitute. She proposes to earn her living at a domes-tic servant.