Genealogy de Blier

The Standard Times

New Bedford, MA

May 13, 1935

Wife of Liquor Farm
Caretaker Kills Self
With Gas After Row

Mrs. Peter Blier is Found Dead
in Hotel Room at Weld Square

Behind Locked Door

Police Told of Her Tiff
with Caretaker of Farm
Where Rum Was Found

Mrs. Georgianne M. Blier, 36, wife of Peter Blier, who was arrested lat week in the spectacular Federal raid on the Seaview Poultry Farm, Sconticut Neck Road, Fairhaven, where he was caretaker, was found dead today in a gas filled kitchenette at the Weld Square Hotel.

She had been living with her husband at the Sconticut Neck farm. She was the mother of four children.

Dr. William Rosen, medical examiner, rendered a verdict of suicide by inhaling illuminating gas.

Mother Reports her Missing

Domestic difficulties were seen by police as the motive for suicide, Chief McLeod learned from official reports that Blier and his wife quarrelled on a sidewalk here in the presence of Sergeant Thomas E. Carr, Saturday. Carr sought to compose their differences and they apparently left together for their Sconticut Neck Road home.

Patrolman Rainville of the North End station recieved a report from Mrs. Anna Thibodeau, mother of Mrs. Blier, Sunday that the latter had been missing since morning.

Relatives of the dead woman said she has often expressed her position to pursuits to which her husband had recently been involved. While he worked at his contracting business and had recently built several houses on Clark's Point, the couple were comfortable and happy the family member added.

Mrs. Delia P. Murphy, manager of the hotel, told police when she called to break into the locked kitchenette, that Mrs. Blier registered at the hotel Sunday morning, remarking as she was assisted to a room that she was very tired and did not wish to be disturbed. Complying with the order no one went into the room until this morning when Mrs. Rose Mailloux, a maid, entered by pass key to put the room in order.

Mrs. Mailloux found the room undisturbed except for a woman's coat and hat lying on a chair. A strong odor of gas emanated from the connecting kitchenette, she tried the door; discovered it was locked; and hastened to report to Mrs. Murphy.

Patrtolman Greg C. Hawes was called from the police station across the street. He forced the door, and came upon Mrs. Blier's dead body, seated in a rocking chair which had been pulled into the tiny compartment from the bedroom. Gas poured from a rubber hose Mrs. Murphy said had been disconnected from the gas burner hot plate and placed in the kitchenette the last time the room was cleaned. The cocks of the gas burner were not open, eliminating the possiblity that Mrs. Blier might have turned on the gas burner under the impression the stove was connected.

The kitchenette was so filled with gas that Patrolman Hawes was nearly overcome in the few seconds it took him to cut off the flow of the gas.

No note was found in the room among Mrs. Blier's belongings. Her automobile license, found in her pocketbook, gave her address of the Sea View Poultry Farm.

The Bliers were married about 15 years ago. Mrs. Blier was Georgianna Thibodeau of Danileson Conn. Mr. Blier was a contractor in the city prior to going out to the poultry farm. Their youngest child, Peter Jr., 5, lived out on the farm with his parents. The three older children, Irene, Andrew and Raymond, the oldest of whom as 14, are at St. Joseph's Orphanage, Fall River.

Besides her husband and children, Mrs. Blier leaves her mother, Mrs. Anna Thibodeau at 288 Coffin Ave., a sister, Mrs. Phillip Cote, of the same address, and two other sisters, Mrs. Wilfred Dessert of Roosevelt St., here, and Mrs. Antonio Girard of Pawtucket, RI.

Mrs. Blier was a native of Biddeford, ME. It was said that the couple lived at the Sconticut Neck poultry farm for the last nine months after havng resided from four to five years in Acushnet.