GOLD COAST BULLETIN

Thursday, January 18, 2007

RIPPED off by a crooked Gold Coast solicitor, Ray and Rosie Warrington lost almost everything.

The trappings of a comfortable retirement – including their waterfront home at Hollywell, cars and boats, were now gone.

In their late 50s the couple were forced to try to find jobs and borrow money from friends.

They endured this hardship for more than 10 years, living in a rented house at Coombabah. Then, something snapped. Ray Warrington shot his sleeping wife dead, then turned the gun on himself in a murder-suicide.

The couple’s tragic downward spiral was traced to one woman – Eleanore Marsden, who they once considered a friend. The Warringtons had lived well after inheriting a share of a deceased estate. At one stage they built their nest egg up to $1.6m.

Who better to administer that money, they thought, than Marsden, a solicitor friend who they had once treated to a $1000a-day Barrier Reef holiday?

But Marsden, blinded by greed, betrayed the Warringtons. The Queensland Law Society claimed the former department deputy director and Gold Coast Show society secretary took control of the Warringtons’ trust in 1987.

She paid the bills and gave cash advances to the family for cars and houses. But by 1995 the Warringtons were finding it increasingly difficult to contact Marsden, who was often overseas.

Marsden pleaded guilty to the rip-off and was sentenced to four years’ jail, serving eight months. But the experience was effectively a death sentence for the couple.