A LOVERS’ TRAGEDY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2436, 26 February 1909, Page 5

A LOVERS’ TRAGEDY.

FLOWERS STREWN ON DEAD GIRL’S PILLOW.

A double tragedy was discovered at tho Curzon Hotel, Brighton, England, recently. The victims were Herbert Cammell Ransom, of Ilford, a man of about thirty, and Elsie Gertrude Hitchcock, a nurse, aged twenty-two, of 103, Chestnut-avenue, Forest Gate.

Both had been shot. The girl left a letter saying that they had mutually agreed to die, and also in the room was found a black-edged card with the phrase, “the only way”—the words written by the inspector of Burmese police who murdered his wife and child and committed suicide at Hove a fortnight ago. Ransom, who was in the shipping trade, was a married man living at "Wellesley-road, Ilford. He leaves two little boys. He informed his wife that he was going to Liverpool oil business on December S, hut instead went to Brighton under the name of Roberts with Elsie Hitchcock. The girl, who was wearing a wedding ring, passed as Mrs Roberts.

ROOM BARRICADED. On Wednesday the couple took all their meals at the hotel, and at night the girl went to her room about eight o'clock. That was the last time she was seen alive. Roberts went with her. but returned to the smoke-room of the.hotel about nine, and then went to his room. ■When the chambermaid called the couple at breakfast-time on Thursday she could get no reply. The door could not be opened, and finally the police were sent for. They had a hard task to make, their way into the room, having bodily to- remove iho door, which had been barricaded. All the drawers from the clothes chest in tlie room had been removed and placed end to end from the door to the opposito wall, smaller drawers being used to wedge them, so that anyone attempting to enter had to force an almost rigid mass. The police had to use levers to force their way in. They found the man, with one leg out of bed. shot through the head, the weapon having been held apparently just under the angle of his right jaw. The wirl was in bed. She was shot on tlio left side of the chest, close to the heart, and also through the temple. She was quite composed, and her pillow had been strewn with pink carnations and white chrysanthemums. Her head lav touching that of Ransom, who still held the five-chamber-ed revolver in his hand.

FATHER’S STORY. Two letters were received in Ilford on Thursday morning from Ransom, one by Mr Jones, a neighbor, and the other by Mrs Ransom. Mi Jones said that bis letter contained the phrase, “'When you get this I shall have one foot in the grave. . Mr F. W. 'Hitchcock, a white-hair-ed man approaching sixty, the father of the dead girl, said that lus daughter Elsie was a trained hospital linrse, and had been at Epsom and Brompton Hospitals (under the Metropolitan Asylums Board), but latterly she had been taking eases in the neighborhood o. Ilford. It was while at one of-those only about two months ago, that she first met Ransom. I understand that he was a widower.” said Mr Hitchcock, “and I certainly thought they were en.o-a'md. I frequently tried to get introduced to him, but I never saw . hint. . A, r “On Tuesday morning last piy daughter kissed me good-bye, saying she was going to spend a few-days with Ransom’s married sister atKingston. That was the last I hoarrt of her until the .police came to tell - me she was dead.” •