SUPPOSED SUICIDE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIII, Issue 123, 26 May 1902, Page 5

SUPPOSED SUICIDE.

The Coroner (Mr T. Gresham) held an inquest at the Hospital this afternoon on the body of a man named William Pressley, an engineer, 60 years of age, who was found yesterday forenoon on the Raijway Wharf with a bullet wound in his head. It appears that shortly before nine o'clock yesterday morning a man named Thomas F. Dismore was walking down the Railway Wharf, and when near the end he discovered an old man, subsequently'identified as Wm; Pressley, sitting upon some planks with a bullet wound in his head. Deceased was leaning forward with his head resting against a stack of timber. Mr Dismore immediately informed the police, and Sergeant Forbes and Constable Ramsay proceeded to the spot, where they found Pressley seated as described. When they lifted him back a small toy pistol, containing a discharged cartridge, fell from his hand. The bullet had entered the right side of. the face between the eye and the ear, and bad come out at the top-of the head. The wound was bleeding profusely, and had evidently been self .inflicted some considerable time before deceased was found, as there was a clot of blood on the timber where bis bead had been resting. Pressley was at the time unconscious, and Constable Ramsay telephoned for a doctor and the ambulance, but before they could arrive the constable made use of a spring-cart in which he conveyed Pressley until meeting the ambulance. The wounded man died shortly after his admission to the Hospital. He was a widower, with one son, also an engineer, employed on the Mission , schooner Southern Cross. Deceased had been a patient at the Hospital for about 12 months, suffering* from hip and eye diease, and was discharged from the-institution on the 17th inst. During last week he boarded with Mrs Saunders in Hob-son-street, but he left on Thursday morning, and his subsequent movements up to his discovery yesterday Turning are unknown.