WOMAN'S SUICIDE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 16, 20 January 1939, Page 10

WOMAN'S SUICIDE.

WALKED INTO RIVER. GIRLS WERE WITNESSES. "WHAT A NIGHT FOR A SWIM" (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) (JTSBORN'E, this day. How three Maori girls crossing the Wairoa River bridge on Saturday night unsuspectingly witnessed a tragedy was revealed at the inquest concerning the death of Mrs. .lane Bates, whose body was found in the river 011 Sunday morning. Martha Aranga said that between H.:SO and !) p.m. on Saturday she was walking across Ihe traffic bridge and she saw a woman who seemed to be dressed in while going into the river. "S thought it was someone having a swim." stated witness. "I thought it a bit strange for anyone to go for a swim at that time of night." "Witness stood 011 Ihe bridge and watched the woman walk into the river and remained until her head appeared above the surface again. Witness then continued walking across the bridge. Two .Maori girls coming across the bridge also saw the woman. "I said to them. 'What a night for a swim,'" continued witness. "They replied, 'Yes.' They looked down at the woman in the water and then went on. I also went on." Replying to the corr i witness said she thought it strange to see someone in the water at that time, but it did not occur to her that it would be someone trying to commit suicide. The woman's husband, Percy Bates, said his wife had been in ill-health for some years. After tea on the day of the tragedy 1. • saw his wife in the yard with an axe, which he took from her. Thereupon sV declared: "You ca,n't stop me taking my own life." The coroner. Air. V. K. Winter, returned a verdict of suicide by drowning while in a stale of acute mental depression.