COUNTESS’S DEATH

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 203, 28 July 1937, Page 10

COUNTESS’S DEATH

VERDICT OF SUICIDE. (United Press Association— By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received July 28, 10.15 a.m. LONDON, July 27. The Coroner returned a verdict that the Countess of Cardigan, whose death was reported on Saturday, committed suicide while of unsound mind. Her husband, in evidence, stated that the countess had not quarrelled with him but had left their home at Oxford on July 22 without stating her destination. A letter from her had alarmed him and he instructed the police to find her. Her mother had committed suicide and the countess had talked of ending her life similarly. The police evidence show that the countess had engaged a suite in the Savoy Hotel on July 22. She locked the "doors and ate nothing, but repeatedly asked for drink. The management, becoming alarmed, sent up a doctor on the night of July 23, but the countess refused him admission. The police said that they had found two notes on ' the dressing table and several smashed glasses. Dr. Moreton declared that the countess’s wrist we A slashed and pieces of glass were found in the stomach. The Coroner returned a verdict that the countess, when quite demented, smashed things, cut her arm with a razor blade, and swallowed glass. Jhe letter to her husband refers to her affection for him and the children, he added, “hut shows that she was demented and intended to take her life in circumstances preventing anyone frustrating her.”