OPEN VERDICT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 192, 16 August 1939, Page 10

OPEN VERDICT.

BODY IN HARBOUR.

RACING SECRETARY.

WORRIES OVER FINANCES.

FRIENIMI WERE CONCERNED. (By Telegraph.—Press Assoclat'on.) WELLINGTON, this day. An open verdict was returned at the inquest this morning concerning the death of Hartley Roy Sellers, aged 55, formerly secretary of the New Zealand Racing Conference.

"Evidently he was verv worried and we have a friend's evidence that he was in financial difficulty, and that would lead one to the suspicion that there was cause for suicide," remarked the coroner, Mr. E. Gilbertson, after hearing the evidence. "There is, however, no direct evidence of that, and in the light of lack of substantial evidence of that fact I shall bring in an open verdict that he was found drowned in Wellington Harbour on August 2, there being no evidence to show how his body came to be in the water," he added.

The principal evidence was that of Herbert Richard Churton Wild, solicitor, of Wellington, who said that Sellers was well known to him. He last saw him alive at 8.30 a.m. on July 3. As he leit his home he. informed witness that he was going to meet a man at the Carlton Hotel. Although general inquiries were made for him he had not been seen alive after leaving the Carlton Hotel at 9.50 a.m. on July 3.

For some time past, said witness, Sellers had been worried about private financial matters and during his last week-end he reached a stage of acute worry, which caused his friends and witness himself great concern.

The only other witnesses were Dr. P. P. Lynch, pathologist, and the two constables who recovered the body and some clothing from the foreshore of the harbour.