HOTEL DISCOVERY

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20954, 6 November 1939, Page 8

HOTEL DISCOVERY

INJURED COUPLE WIFE FOUND DEAD AT HOME WOMAN IN SERIOUS CONDITION (By Telegraph.—Press Association) • AUCKLAND, Monday With wounds in the arms, Mr Francis Leonard Laurie, aged 39, a storeman employed at the Naval Base, and Mrs Annie Josephine Laycock, aged 35, wife of Mr David Laycock, employed by the Devonport Ferry Company, were removed to hospital from a bedroom in the Station Hotel at 8.30 this morning. Mrs *Laycock had a severe wound in the right forearm, and her condition is reported to be serious through loss of blood. Mr Laurie had a wound in the left forearm, and his condition is reported to be satisfactory. It is understood that Mr Laurie and Mrs Laycock booked in at the hotel about lunch time yesterday, also that when a housemaid knocked at the door at 6.45 with morning tea an instruction was called from an inside room in a man’s voice to take the breakfast tray to the room at 8.30. Returning with the tray at that time the maid found the door locked. She unlocked it with a pass key and found Mr Laurie on the bed and Mrs Laycock lying on the floor, both bleeding profusely. A doctor and the police were called immediately. Discovery at Home When the police visited Mr Laurie’s home in Egremont Street, Belmont, North Shore, they found Mrs Laurie lying on the floor of the kitchen, clad in a pink nightdress and a cardigan, with her head in the gas oven. She was dead, and had left a note in the course of which she had bequeathed property. Room in Confusion According to the police a razor blade or blades and a bottle were found in the bedroom occupiVd by Mr Laurie and Mrs Laycock. It is stated that the couple booked in as “ Mr and Mrs Laurie, of Warkworth.” Yesterday afternoon and thereafter little was seen of them by the staff, but they were noticed during the evening in the vicinity of the office on the ground floor. Their room, it is stated, was in a state of confusion this morning, the carpet having been rolled back. A porter, who entered the room, said later that Mr Laurie asked him to apologise to the maid, and Mrs Laycock told him to get a doctor at once. Husband Finds Letter Mr David Laycock, the husband of the woman taken to hospital, said to-day that he knew nothing of his wife’s presence at the Station Hotel until informed at 11.30 a.m. to-day. Prior to that he visited the police station to see a detective who was a personal friend, and while there he mentioned his wife’s absence from home. Mr Laycock said he later handed to detectives a note in his wife’s handwriting which he had found on the kitchen table when he returned home last night at 11.40 from a visit to Hamilton. Mrs Laurie’s neighbours were shocked at the news of her death. “She was one of the sweetest women I have ever known,” said a woman neighbour, adding, “they were regarded as an ideal couple.” They had lived there for eight years. There were no children, their only child, a boy, having died some years ago.