DUE TO DROWNING.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 30, 6 February 1928, Page 10

DUE TO DROWNING.

DEATH OF CHARLES MAHAN.

MURDER THEORY IMPROBABLE.

INQUEST ADJOURNED,

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

CHRISTCHURCH, this day.

It is fiemi-officially stated that the post-mortem examination of the body of Charles James Mahan, a Timaru stock buyer, which was found at Lyttelton, revealed that death was due to drowning, and not to wounds on the head. At first it was thought he had been murdered. No further evidence has yet been secured regarding the man's movements just before his death. The wounds, it is understood, w*'re not sufficiently severe to cause death, and the man's skull was not fractured.. Ronald Cornish, aged 11 years, told the police of a man believed to have been Malian, with whom he was speaking near the swimming steps about eight o'clock on Friday evening. The man was then sitting on the steps watching a number of boys swimming. He talked a good deal. He was wearing a dark pair of spectacles, a dark blue suit, and the boy could only see a finger and thumb on one hand. Cornish said: "He was talking a lot of rot, the kids were cheeking him, and he appeared to be drunk or dopy."

Mr. H. A. Young, district coroner, opened an inquest at Lyttelton on Saturday afternoon.

Charles Ludlow Mahan, school teacher, of Timaru, identified the body as that of his father. He last saw him alive on January 31 at 1 p.m., when he arrived home for lunch. He was then in his usual health and made no mention of leaving home. The next thing he heard of his father's whereabouts was when he received a telegram from Christchurch that evening saying that he would be home on Wednesday. On Thursday witness' mother received her post office savings book, which had been posted at Christchurch by bis father on Wednesday. It was addressed in his father's.

handwriting. Witness then became anxious about his father, so he came up from Timaru to try to locate him.

Detective-Sergeant Young said he did not wish to proceed any further with

the inquest at present, as he was still making inquiries. The coroner adjourned the inquest sine die.