MYSTERY OF CHILD’S DEATH

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21960, 8 December 1936, Page 10

MYSTERY OF CHILD’S DEATH

FALSE OF FATAL SHOCK NOT KNOWN (I'UBUS ASBOCIATIoy fKLiIUAAM.I TAUMARUNUI, December 7. Tile death of Zena, the four-year-okl daughter of Mr Ernest Prescott, a mechanic, occurred in unusual circumstances on Saturday. The mother , rushed into a neighbour's house in a demented state with the child in her arms. The lather and a doctor were summoned immediately, and the child was found to be dead. No coherent statement could be obtained from the mother. An inquest was opened for identification and adjourned. On Sunday night. Dr. Walter Gilmour, pathologist, arrived by car and made a post-mortem examination. He found no signs of drowning, which was at first suspected, no signs of suffocation, which was also suspected, and no marks of violence on the body. The i child died of shock, the cause of which is not known. When Hie child was taken by her | mother to the neighbour, the child's j head was slightly wet, and it was ■ thought then that she might have been 1 drowned, but the pathologist’s exam- i ination disproved that theory. It is suggested that the child received some accidental shock which caused death, and the tragic discovery unbalanced the mother’s mind. She is still unable to give any coherent account of whai happened.