New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1918-04-01
Nurse Confesses
Staying Sister;
Calls Embalmer
Trenton Woman Found
With Arteries i'm Wrists
Severed
Relative Is Arrested
Placed Under Observation
in State Insane
Hospital

TRENTON. N. j., March 31.-"I have
just killed my sister. You may go and
get her body" said Miss Corneila Con-
solly, forty-two years of age, a nurse,
to Clifford Taylor, an undertaken, to-
night as she entered his place of bust
! ness here
Taylor called the police and held the
woman until the officers arrived. He
then accompanied them to the apart
ment, occupied by Miss Consolly and
her sister, Miss Estclle Congoly, forty
years of age, school teacher. They
found the teacher dead on the bed, with
the arteries in both her wrists severed
She had bled to death.
The nurse was Immediately sent to
the State Hospital for the Insane. where
ton to ascertain her mental condition.
The police, at first, inclined to the
theory that the school teacher might
have committed suicide and that the
nurse to protect her sisters memory,
assumed the responsibility for her
death.
Miss Consolly talked freely of the
murder of her sister, but the police
find it hard to believe that the muir
fight. There are no evidences OF
struggle. There were no bruises upon
, the dead woman's body and everything
in the room seemed to be in order
when the police arrived. There were
no blood stains upon the clothing of
the nurse when examined tonight
From neighbors the police learned
that the nurse had been acting strange
~ of late. She had been reading much
n hn ~,
to have affected her mental condition.
They also say that she was greatly de-
pressed by the publication of a story in
the papers here yesterday. wherein her
sister, school teacher, had preferred
charges of assault and battery against
her principal, Miss Ella A. Mcpherson,
of the Joseph Woods Public School,
The two sisters were inseparable, the
police were told. and the news Of her
sisters troubles had greatly upset the
/ nurse.
1t was just about dusk this evening
when the nurse neatly dressed, walked
into the undertaker's office, several
blocks from her home, and there told
ct her sisters death. The police oues-
toned her and to them she told the
same story, and later on.at the hospital
again repeated the details of the death
of her sister. In no instance, however,
did she say anything about a struggle.
For this reason the authorities are of
the opinion that drugs of some kind
must have been administered. if the
story of the nurse is to be given cred
ence.
The dead woman lay on the bed, part
ly clothed. The arteries IN her right
wrist had been severed four times and
those in her left wrist once The weap-
on with which the cutting had been
done has not been found
Miss Cornelia Consolly. the police
say, was formerly nurse in Bellevue
Hospital, New York City
Tells Of Staying Pact
The nurse told the authorities at the
hospital she and her sister had entered
into pact, whereby she was to kill her
sister. She said they planned the
death in detail She said she used a
pair Of scissors and then told of having
hid these among the bed clothing. These
were found where she said she had
placed them.
From their talks with the woman the
surgeons are of the opinion she is men
tally unbalanced, but the police are not
so ready to accept this theory. They
seem to believe that the examination OF
the contents Of the dead woman's
stomach might indicate drugs of some
kind had been used.
Leslie Consolly, brother of the two
women, is said to have married the
widow of Henry b. Harris. theatrical
man. who lost his life in the Titanic
disaster
Another brother, John Consollv, is
now serving in the French Army