DOUBLE-LIFE DELUSION.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 279, 24 November 1928, Page 3 (Supplement)

DOUBLE-LIFE DELUSION.

YOUTH'S SUICIDE ON RAILWAY

STRANGE LETTERS.

Remarkable letters were read by the. South Pembrokeshire coroner at an inquest at Haverfordwest on the bod) ot Daniel Lewis Trevor Owen 17), a clerk employed in the county medical officer s office, who was found ou the railway hue with his head severed. The coroner said several letters had been left by Owen. One, addressed to himself, read:— "There is really no need to hold an inquest on my body, as it is just a case of suicide with an unsound mind, only in mv case it is not temporary, but one which has lasted for _ years, with just a few intervals of sanity. "There is no blame attached to the chemist from whom I bought the poison, because I used a doctor's signatured got it, and as he has often supplied tilings to the particular doctor there can be no possible blame on his part. Do not hold him responsible in any way, as ho is entirely innocent." "A Hopeless Wreck." The coroner then read a letter addressed to the parents, in which Owen wrote:— "Dear Mum and Dad—l am sorry to bring this trouble on you, but I have made such a hopeless wreck of my life that there is nothing left for me to do. "I have carried on my ordinary work, and made an awful muddle of everything. I have done so many things that are wrong that I cannot face the consequences, leading a double life for such a long time, so try to forgive me." The Coroner: That is all a delusion? The Father: Yes, sir. Dr. Middleton, the county medical officer, said Owen had been in his office for two years and four months. He was a clever and a reliable boy, and he had never noticed anything wrong with him. ■ His work was all in order. The coroner mentioned that there was another letter written in a similar strain.

After medical evidence, the coronei returned a verdict of "Suicide during ; fit of insanity."