FATALLY WOUNDED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 November 1940, Page 6

FATALLY WOUNDED

WHARF LABOURER’S DEATH TRAGEDY IN WELLINGTON, WIFE ARRESTED ON MURDER CHARGE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON. This Day. After an alleged attack by his wife, Francis Norman Laurentine, waterside worker, aged about 37 years, was taken to hospital on Saturday night with severe knife wounds in the left groin and the back. He was’admitted at 7.50 p.m.. but had lost so much blood that, despite blood transfusion, he died at 8.30 p.m. At 10.20 p.m. Detective-Sergeant W. McLennan and Detective Smeaton arrested Jean Laurentine, aged 31, on a charge of having murdered her husband. She will appear in the Magistrates' Court, Wellington, this morning, when a remand will be asked for by the police. 1 The couple rented two rooms at 263 Willis Street. Mr. and Mrs. Laurentine, it is understood, had spent the afternoon at the Wellington Trotting Club's meeting at Hutt Park and had been brought home by a friend in his car, arriving

about 7 p.m. The couple went upstairs. The first thing the others in the house knew of the affair was when, about 7.30 p.m., Mrs. Laurentine rushed downstairs crying that her husband was dying. The police wore sent for and an ambulance was quickly on the

scene and Laurentine rushed to hospital. The Laurentines had been married for about nine years and had resided at 263 Willis Street for about five years. Mr. Laurentine was a native of London and had followed the sea before taking up work on the wharves. Mrs. Laurentine. who is partly of Maori blood, was a Miss Clark. There are no children living. About four years ago the couple’s only child, a boy of five, died of pneumonia after a chill. COURTHOUSE CROWDED. ACCUSED REMANDED. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. Jean Laurentine appeared in a! crowded Magistrate’s Court this morning, charged with the murder of her husband and with the consent of accused’s counsel, a remand was granted to November 20.