DEATH OF TWO PEOPLE

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 265, 5 August 1937, Page 11

DEATH OF TWO PEOPLE

Woman’s Fall From Window COMMENTS BY CORONER London, August 3. The coroner, Mr. Ingleby Oddle, in a verdict of suicide in connection with the death of Mrs. Warburton, who fell from a window on to a man, who died of injuries, drew a distinction between constructing murder and constructive manslaughter, which is interesting nowadays because it is not so strictly interpreted as formerly, inasmuch as a motorist killing a person by driving dangerously is usually punished for dangerous driving, without being charged with manslaughter. Mr. Oddie expressed the opinion, that a verdict of murder would be improper in the present case, though the old legal doctrine established that when a person committing a felony unintentionally killed another he was guilty of constructive murder. Similarly; a person committing a misdemeanour and unintentionally causing another's death was guilty of constructive manslaughter, but since Mrs,. Warburton was not fully in possession of her faculties when she committed suicide she was not guilty of felonious intent. Therefore the death of Donald Black was accidental, and the verdict would be accordingly. Mrs. Warburton’s husband disclosed that his wife had previously attempted suicide.

Having claimed his letter from the Young Men’s Christian Association at Birmingham, a visitor to the city, Donald Black, aged 30, died in hospital after Mrs. Mary Warburton, aged 65, fell on him from a window on the fourth floor of the building. Mrs.’ Warburton was taken to hospital moaning, ‘‘Oh, the poor boy.” She died from her injuries'.