Tragedy of wife who stabbed herself to death

2:30pm Wednesday 16th July 2008

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A DEVOTED grandmother stabbed herself repeatedly with a carving knife while her husband was just yards away.

An inquest heard how Pauline Rigby, aged 56, went into the dining room of her home in Rutland Road, Tyldesley, and tried several times to stab herself in the neck and chest before plunging the knife into her heart.

Her husband, Barrie, was working in the garden and had assumed she had gone to their daughter's house. He went inside and found his wife's body on the floor.

Police initially arrested Mr Rigby on suspicion of murder but released him hours later after a post mortem examination revealed his wife's injuries were self-inflicted.

Two weeks before she died in February, Mrs Rigby had seen her doctor and was diagnosed with depression. However, in the days before her death, her husband said she acted normally.

Mr Rigby found his wife lying on the floor covered in blood with a knife nearby.

Recording a verdict that Mrs Rigby took her own life while the balance of her mind was disturbed, the deputy coroner at Bolton said: "The horror of what Mr Rigby felt is unimaginable."