A YOUTH'S SUICIDE.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16403, 24 December 1918, Page 3

A YOUTH'S SUICIDE.

UNUSUAL CIRCUMSTANCES

Some rather unusual circumstances I were revealed at tho inquest on the [ body of Samuel James Dyer, 18 years of age, which was held in the Courthouse yesterday before Mr S. E. Mc- | Car thy, coroner. Joseph Galbraith Dyer, 90 Glandovey road, Fendalton, said that deceased r/as his son, and 18 years of age. At the end of October he had been ill with influenza, but had never expressed any intention of taking his life. Myrtle McKay stated that sho was in domestic service, and that deceased had been keeping company with her, but she did not cncourage him. He wrote her a letter asking her to meet him at "Jackson's road gate," and said that if sho were not there he would be in his "last sleep under tho trees at the corner," but she was not to think he was doing it because of her, for ho had "had a miserable time all his life.'' She burned tho letter, but had written a copy from menioiy (produced). She duly met him on the night referred to, and he at first seemed strange in m'anner. Later, he said ho wanted to say good-bye to her, as he was "clearing out of it." He, made no reference to takiag his life. William Henry Wilson, 56 Idris road, Fendalton, said he heard a shot fired at about ll.au- o'clock on Friday 'night. On Saturday morning, as ho was walking along a short cut through a paddock near his residence, ho discovered the body of deceased lying under somo trees. A gun lay alongside it. Constable Porteous, of Fendalton, gave formal evidence. The Coroner returned a verdict that deceased committed suicide by shooting himself while in a Eta to of unsound mind.