ASYLUM MURDER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 210, 5 September 1931, Page 3 (Supplement)

ASYLUM MURDER.

ATTACK BY NEW PATIENT

An attack of one patient on another at the Wiltshire County Mental Hospital was described at an inquest at Devizes on Thomas Gambling, aged 70. I Sidney Nott, an attendant at the institution, said that he saw Frank Percy Shanks, a patient, sitting astride Gambling in a ward with his hands on the back of Gambling's neck. Gambling was lying on the bed and had his head under a pillow. Shanks was shouting, "I will kill you." After a struggle he (Nott) got Shanks to the middle of the ward. A quarter of an hour earlier Shanks appeared to be perfectly quiet. Dr. S. J. Cole, medical superintendent, said Shanks was admitted to the institution on a magistrate's . order, and was marked as a dangerous person who had threatened-his father and mother with violence. When he, the doctor, asked Shanks what he had been doing, Shanks replied, "I am the King of the Jews, and have been waiting for redress." Dr. Thornton, pathologist to the county council, said Gambling's death was due to shock and sudden violent exertion and fright, combined with a bad heart, which caused heart failure. The foreman said the jury were agreed that Gambling met his death by violence. The coroner, Mr. Forrester, said that was a verdict of murder. The Foreman: We were trying to avoid the word murder. Mr. Forrester: But we must use it.