DOUBLE TRAGEDY
MAN AND WOMAN DEAD.
JEALOUSY APPARENT MOTIVE.
AN OTAGO SENSATION.
(Per Press Association.) DUNEDIN, This Day.
A single woman named Peggy McInnes was found at Waitati shortly after midnight with her throat cut and her head bashed in.
Nearby was found the body of Thomas Ellis, with his throat cut.
Details seem to reveal a brutal murder. The scene was the grounds of the Orakanui Mental Home.
The murdered woman, Peggy McInnes, aged 25, was employed as a nurse on the staff, having recently been transferred from Seacliff; while Thomas Ellis, aged about 35, was employed as a bricklayer at Seacliff by the Love Construction Company.
Just before midnight, Constable Pearce was awakened by a man named O'Neill, a member of the hospital staff, who stated that he had heard groans from the drive, and on going out had found Ellis staggering about with his throat cut. Constable Pearce, on going to the scene, found Ellis dead. He returned home, but later was awakened with the news that a nurse was missing. After search, her body was found among some scrub beneath pine trees. She was lying on a travelling rug. Her head was terribly hacked and her throat cut. The deed was apparently done with a stone tied in a handkerchief, and a pocket-knife.
It transpires that Ellis, with his throat cut, was found roaming around the hospital grounds within 30 yards of the spot where the murdered girl was subsequently located. This means that his cries must have been particularly loud to have attracted notice from the hospital building.
The motive appears to have been one arising from jealousy.
Miss McInnes was keeping company with two men, Ellis being one, and it appears that she was hesitating as to whom she would eventually choose. In Ellis's coat the police found a letter addressed to him, which had been sent by the girl. It was couched in friendly, if not loving, terms, and through it an appointment to meet was made, but not for the night of the tragedy.
The Love Constructing Company states that Ellis had been with their firm at Seacliff only until July 21 last; therefore, as far as is known, he had been out of work for some time. -Ashburton Guardian, 24/8/1928.
MIDNIGHT SCREAMS REVEAL GRISLY LOVE TRAGEDY
Hospital Nurse Brutally Battered To Death By Rejected Suitor In Jealous Rage
SUICIDE OF FOUL SLAYER CLOSES CHAPTER OF HORROR
A Hideous Sight
"PEGGY" McINNES, a bright-eyed girl of twenty-five, discovered that her love for Thomas Ellis was but ephemeral...and before marriage had set the seal upon their lives, she told him she never could marry him. In jealous rage he murdered her, then killed himself...his rival ousted!
OF a truth, jealousy is the paralysis of love. It drains the well of fine endeavor, makes beasts of men and winnows the finer instincts of womanhood to the shallow hull of uncharitableness. To this contention is subscribed the brutal slaying of Nurse McInnes, whose death provides a terrible example.
(From "N.Z. Truth's" Special Dunedin Representative.)
THE CRUEL EYE of jealousy has instilled its venom into the lives of countless thousands of men and women, bringing with it a litter of tragedy and bitter ruin. The poignant spirit of unrequited love is often no less cruel in its aftermath, of which there can be no more ghastly example than the murder of Margaret McInnes by her erstwhile lover, Thomas Ellis, at Waitati, near Dunedin, last week. Jealousy — and a frustrated passion for the girl who had consented to become his wife — set a flame to Ellis' kindling brain, quickening his desire to carry with him the soul of the girl who had forsaken his love for that of another suitor.
SHORTLY before midnight on Thursday of last week, "Peggy" McInnes was smashed to her death by the blows of a man she no longer loved sufficiently ever to call him "husband." It must be assumed that in his insensate passion for her, he decided to quench for all time, her love for his rival. When the sad news of the dreadful affair became known, every village and hamlet for miles around was infused with a ceaseless, babbling conjecture.
The gruesomeness of the situation penetrated the normal tranquility of the countryside and all routine seemed broken by the suddenness with which the news descended upon it.
It appears that shortly before midnight on Thursday, August 23, an attendant named Ashworth was making his rounds of the Orokonui mental asylum situated a few miles to the northward of Dunedin.
Suddenly, through the still corridors of the hospital, he heard a loud moaning sound, apparently coming from the direction of a plantation which stretches along the roadside on the way to Waitati.
As the cries were so insistent and clearly emitted by someone in intense pain, he hurriedly left the hospital and quickly ran down the road.
As he proceeded towards the plantation, the man's cries grew in intensity.
When Ashworth had thrust his way through the bush, he came upon a dishevelled man, gesticulating wildly and writhing in agony, blood issuing from a terrible gash in his throat.
He was hatless and coatless, while his collar and tie had similarly disappeared.
By the time the attendant was seized of the full possibilities in the situation, the flow of blood from the injured man's neck had somewhat diminished and Ashworth decided to enlist the help of the hospital authorities, as Ellis was clearly in a dying condition.
Hastening to the hospital, the attendant secured a stretcher and further assistance from another hospital employee, meantime telephoning to the local constable.
Securing, lanterns, Ashworth and Stewart, the other attendant, hurriedly left the asylum, directed by even louder screams than those previously heard by Ashworth, when first the tragedy was made apparent to him.
They came upon Ellis in a leafy, secluded little byway, through the bush at the roadside, gasping out some incoherent mumblings which they were unable to understand.
He was then lying on his side, his neck almost severed by a deep knife wound, whilst his left wrist also disclosed a minor incision, obviously inflicted with some sharp instrument.
Gently raising the man, they placed him on the stretcher and carried him — carefully, yet with expeditious haste — in the direction of the hospital.
So well had Ellis carried out his intention, however, that before Ashworth and Stewart could bring him within the care of a doctor, he had expired when the party reached the hospital gates, leaving no indication as to his identity or the reason for his self-mutilation.
At that time there was nothing to show that Ellis' was anything more than a case of suicide and when Constable Pearce arrived from Waitati, it was decided to place the body in the hospital morgue, pending identification and the customary inquiry.
Four hours later it was discovered that Nurse McInnes was missing from the nurses' quarters and once again the attendant, Ashworth, was roused from his bed.
When he received intimation that the girl was missing — and realizing, perhaps, that the suicide of Ellis might have some connection with the disappearance of Miss McInnes — Ashworth immediately telephoned to Constable Pearce, who hurriedly made his way to the hospital grounds, where he met Ashworth and straightway proceeded to search.
At half- past five, after a most thorough search of the neighborhood contiguous to the grounds of the institution, they came upon the hideous spectacle of Nurse McInnes' inert body, the head shockingly battered and resting on the base of a large pine tree, her throat horribly slashed with knife wounds.
Although there were no signs of a struggle, a number of personal belongings of Ellis and his sweetheart were strewn over the ground; his overcoat, coat, waistcoat, collar and tie, a pair of kid gloves, with the hats belonging to the man and the girl, were found quite close to where her body was found.
The left side of her skull was almost shattered by the ferocity of the blows which Ellis showered upon her, a gaping wound had cleaved the top of her forehead, whilst her throat was opened with a wide slash, commencing from her left ear and indicative of the tremendous force which Ellis must have exerted to carry out his frightful act.
In the flickering lights of the two lanterns, the men, horrified by the pitiful mutilation of the dead girl, could (text missing)
Just behind the murdered girl's head was a large handkerchief, drenched with blood. Inside this handkerchief was a huge stone, some fourteen or sixteen ounces in weight, around which the fabric had been knotted, forming the deadly weapon with which Ellis had undoubtedly committed the murder.
The attention of the searchers was then, directed to the finding of the knife with which Ellis finally dispatched his one-time sweetheart.
To and fro, backwards and forwards, went the two men, until at length they discovered an ordinary pocket-knife.
An inquest was conducted the afternoon following, at which the coroner (Magistrate Bartholomew) intimated that the facts of the tragedy were only too plain.
"It is obvious that Nurse McInnes was murdered by Ellis, who then cut his own throat," was his comment at the conclusion of the coronial proceedings. A verdict in those terms was recorded.
There are many poignant elements underlying the deaths of these two people; a narrative of passion which never was to be satisfied; of a man's love which was turned aside for the affection of another man.
The fount of the story seems to be in the meeting of Ellis and Miss McInnes some six months ago, when she was stationed as a nurse at the Seacliff mental hospital, whilst he was employed by the Love, Construction Company, in the erection of a new wing at the asylum.
In point of ability, she was unusually capable, whilst her disposition had attracted many people towards her.
She was twenty-five years of age, whilst her murderer, a plasterer by trade, was nine years her senior.
It is understood that he was divorced from his wife.
According to a young nurse named Muriel Adele Laurent, who appears to have been the confidant of Miss McInnes, the girl was enamored of two men, between whom she could not decide as to which should be her life partner.
Nurse McInnes had attended a dance less than a week before she met her death — and it was then that she aroused the ire of Ellis, because she danced with a number of other men and had not given him an opportunity of paying attention to her.
She danced with so many other men that after the function he taxed her with her apparent casualness towards him. Their argument finally resulted in a quarrel.
Avoided A Scene Afterwards, he took her to a relative's house in Dunedin, late at night. On the Tuesday evening, the dead girl had told Nurse Laurent that she was "finished" with Ellis, particularly as the result of his attitude when she was returning to Waitati.
It seems that on the Monday afternoon, Ellis went to where Miss McInnes was waiting for the bus.
In order to avoid a scene, she stepped into the taxi in which he had arrived and returned with him to Waitati.
On the evening following, the girl handed a letter addressed: "Mr. T. Ellis, care of Mr. McKenzie, Seacliff," to Nurse Laurent, asking her to post it in Dunedin, stressing the importance of its being posted in the city.
When Thursday morning came and no reply had been received, she seemed overcast with worry, for she was expecting a response to her letter, which had contained the intimation that her love for Ellis had dwindled.
Although outwardly she showed no sign of uneasiness, to her friend she confided that she dreaded his reply, though she hoped he would answer every question she had asked him.
But no reply came. The dead girl made no secret of the fact that she did not wish to see him again as a lover.
At ten-past six on the Thursday evening, a man, who was recognized as Ellis, called at the hospital and asked for Nurse McInnes. When she came to the door, he was invited inside.
A few minutes afterwards he left the hospital. When he had gone, his onetime sweetheart told the nurses that she had decided to invite Ellis to meet her and discuss the decision at which she had arrived.
As she was on duty until eight o'clock she was unable to meet Ellis earlier in the evening, but shortly after her work was finished, she left the hospital, clad in her uniform, covered by a brown coat.
It appears that her conversation with Ellis had been none too happy, as when he departed she burst into tears, telling her friends that Ellis had some bad news for her, but the nature of the news she did not vouchsafe.
When the two attendants found her poor shattered body early next morning, they saw her clothes were very much disarranged, but the medical testimony of the doctor who was called discountenanced any suggestion of immoral outrage. -NZ Truth, 30/8/1928.
No comments:
Post a Comment