FATAL DREAM.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 301, 20 December 1926, Page 7

FATAL DREAM.

IMITATING SHOWMAN. OCTOGENARIAN SLEEPWALKEB LONDON, December 17. The Westminster coroner recently established a connection between the exploit of Murray, tbe Australian "escapologist" (who, in London, recently was prevented by the police from suspending himself 150 feet in the air from a crane, and then releasing himself from a strait-jacket) and the death oi a wealthy recluse, Henry Stovel, aged 83, whose body, with the ankles bounci with string, was found on the pavement 50 feet below his bedroom window ir Northumberland Avenue. The coroner said that deceased, cvi dently a sleep-walker, had seen news paper pictures of Murray, hanging head downwards, and had dreamed of the mci dent and unconsciously had tried to re produce the trick, with fatal results. Stovel left an old letter, giving in structions that there should be a quiei funeral and no Press notices of hii death. A verdict of accidental death, whili sleep-walking, was recorded.