On 14 July, 18:43, wrote:
Andy Burns wrote:
wrote:
jim wrote:
On 11 July, 16:26, Grimly Curmudgeon
wrote:
////
snip

*but the newspapers love to perpetuate
old myths.
no myth

I can find little hard evidence for the method of her suicide though
I'm willing to be corrected if you can point me to something.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...950505,00.html

TFT - ties down the date to Oct 1980.

Which says nothing about the method at all (like all the other
references I could find), it just says:-

* * Four days later, she was found electrocuted in her bath,
* * apparently a suicide.

At the time both the case and the inquest received detailed coverage -
including an indication as to how she had made the elec fire fall off
the wall above the bath - in the local rag (the Leicester Mercury), as
well as passing notes in the nationals.

Unfortunately the on-line Merc archive doesn't stretch back that far
(by a long way). So if you really doubt my memory you need to either
(1) visit the Merc's offices & ask to check back issues (if they will
let you) or (2) visit the Leicester Ref Library - or perhaps the Leics
Record Office or (3) visit the Brit Lib Newspaper Reading Rooms in
Collingdale.

I didn't often see the Loughborough Echo which also has Cossington
within its area, but should have expected that also would have given
the matter detailed coverage. So that's a second source for you. And
aren't there official inquest records somewhere too?

Fortunately I moved away from Leics in the mid 80s, otherwise I'd do
the lookup for you.

Even so the matter still sticks in my craw. Two reasons. One was
that my cat's escape & several searches of her garden imparted a vivid
recollection of the 'crime scene'. T'other was that electrocution
seemed, and still seems, an extraordinary suicide choice for a doctor
to make.

And even if by some bizarre circumstance the fire fell off the wall by
itself & it wasn't suicide, there is no doubt she was electrocuted in
her bath.

Funny though, the doubt I have about the ref quoted above lies not in
the suicide, but IIRC Lady Barnet was found not guilty by the local
magistrates - not convicted by a jury. Which factoid also still
sticks in my craw. Possibly because reports in the local rag left one
with a definite feeling that she had had a lucky 'got off' (or 'let
off'?). Not that that was a great surprise as she was, or had been, a
magistrate herself.