SUICIDE VERDICT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 304, 24 December 1941, Page 8

SUICIDE VERDICT

MAN'S DEATH IN CELLS FACED MURDER CHARGE (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Tuesday. "I think the prison authorities acted prudently and took all precautions," said the coroner, Mr.- W. G. L. Mellish, J.P., to-day, at the conclusion of the inquest into the death of Ronald Herbert Mellar, railway surfaceman, married, aged 24, who was found hanged in his . cell at Mount Crawford prison last Friday night. Mellar was on remand on a charge of having murdered his sister, Mrs. Ida Gwen Speight, in Palmerston North, on November 25. He had pleaded not guilty and was to have appeared for trial at the next sessions of the Supreme Court in Palmerston North. John James Henry Lauder, chief warder ;at Mount Crawford prison, gave evidence that Mellar, as a prisoner on remand, had his own clothes. He was visited every 15 minutes by a warder who looked through a spyhole. About 8 p.m. last Friday two warders reported that Mellar was hanging from a window of his cell. A silk scarf was tied round his neck, the other end being tied round a bar of the window. Artificial respiration was applied until the arrival of a doctor at 8.25 p.m. Thomas Cameron Blake, warder, said he saw Mellar at 7.45 p.m. He appeared normal. At 8 o clock he was found hanging.

Dr. D. Brown, eaol surgeon, said death was caused by strangulation: A verdict of suicide was returned.