MURDER AND SUICIDE
WELLINGTON TRAGEDY. CORONER’S VERDICT. I (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. A verdict that Francis Leonard Laurie murdered Josephine Ann Laycock and then committed suicide was returned by the coroner, Mr W. G. L. Mellish, in Wellington yesterday. Death in both cases was due to carbon monoxide poisoning. Evidence was given that Laurie and Mrs Laycock were found dead at 12 Riddiford Street on April 9 with their heads in a gas oven. The last time they had been seen was on March 27. There was a note on the premises from Laurie stating that because of the pain in his wife's finger he had given her sleeping tablets, and he had given her too much. Mrs Laycock had a poisoned finger which she had been having treated at the Public Hospital. Dr. P. P. Lynch said the sleeping tablets found in the house were harmless, but there was enough of the ding in Mrs Laycock’s stomach to make her comatose, and incapable of putting her head in the oven.
“It seems clear that Mrs Laycock was unconscious or incapable of resistance when her head was put in the oven by Laurie,” remarked the coroner in returning his verdict.
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Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 April 1942, Page 5
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202MURDER AND SUICIDE Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 April 1942, Page 5
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