A BAFFLING CASE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 282, 28 November 1931, Page 3 (Supplement)

A BAFFLING CASE.

YOUNG WOMAN'S DEATH.

IMPALED ON FENCE,

SENSATIONAL THEORIES,

Alter an adjournment so that the police could further pursue their inquiries, the continued inquest into the mysterious death of a young Irish girl failed to establish how she came to be impaled on the railings of a private hotel in Marylebone Road, London, N.W. In returning an open verdict, Mr. Ingleby Oddie, the coroner, remarked that although the inquest was closed, inquiries \vould be continued, and further proceedings could take place if fresh evidence was forthcoming. The victim of the tragedy was Annie Haughney (21), of Carloiv, Ireland. Nurse Ada Edmonds, night nurse at Paddington Hospital, said that before Miss Haughney died she told her that after her arrival in London she left her case at an hotel near Euston station and went out. She went about all day, and at night found her way back to Marylebone Road, and a policeman directed her to an hotel. When she went to the hotel she asked for a clock, and set it for six o'clock to get up to go home to Ireland. She said that she came down at 6 a.m., and the door was locked and bolted, and she could not get out. "I asked her what she did," continued Nurse Edmonds, "and she said she rushed back upstairs and cried for help. When she got back to the top landing a man came out after her, so she ran into her room. I asked her if she intended to kill herself and if she threw _ herself out of the window to commit suicide, and she said, 'No.' She did not know what happened after she got back to her room.'' "A Sensible Girl." Mr. Ingleby Oddie: Was she rather a simple sort of girl?—No, I thought she seemed rather a sensible sort of girl. Inspector Thomas Frew said that he found from the reception book of the hospital that when Haughney. was admitted she had in her possession £3' in Irish money, and 1/0% in English coins. It was by an oversight that this money was not mentioned before. Replying to Mr. Oddie, Inspector Frew said that his inquiries showed that the hotel was a resort of women who took men there. Terence Enfield, brother of Mrs. Black, part owner of the hotel, Avas recalled and asked by the coroner, "Why did you tell me at the first sitting that you were sleeping alone on the ground floor on a settee?" Enfield replied that,- in fact, he was sleeping with a Mrs. Bates, but he had said before that he slept on the settee alone, because he wished to spare Mrs. Bates' feelings. The coroner asked Enfield if he had ever heard of a certain man, and Enfield replied that he did not know the name and did not remember an incident concerning the man'.