ACCIDENTS AND DEATHS

Evening Star, Issue 21316, 21 January 1933, Page 10

ACCIDENTS AND DEATHS

FISHERMAN DROWNED. Another drowning accident occurred at the West Coast (Auckland) yesterday afternoon, when Patrick Norton, aged twenty-eight years, a farmer, of Waimaulnv while fishing off the rocks at Motutara, was washed off arid drowned. Norton and a man named Daniels and another companion were fishing off the rocks at mid-day when breakers came in and carried all three out. They, were soon struggling in the strong undertow, and, although Daniels and the other man managed to fight their way back in an exhausted condition, Norton was washed out to sea and drowned. ELDERLY WOMAN’S DEATH. An inquest was held at the morgue yesterday afternoon touching the death of Helen Stratton, whose body was found vesterday morning hanging m the washhouse of her residence at 93 Leith street. Mr H. W. Bundle, S.M., sat as coroner. Evidence of identification was given by George Stratton, a brother of the deceased, who stated that she was fifty years of age and single. Witness last saw her alive on the previous Sunday, when she appeared to be in normal health and spirits. Dr Evans rendered medical evidence, and expressed the opinion that death was caused by asphyxia following strangulation. . . , Fanny M'Williains, who had been a housekeeper in the the employ of the deceased for the past four months, stated that the deceased had been in indifferent health during that period, and had had a very bad illness before Christmas. She had complained on Thursday night of pains in the head and a pain in the heart, but she was quite cheerful when she retired to bed about . 9 o’clock. Next morning witness, on rising, had occasion to go to the backyard, and through the washhouse window she could see the body of the deceased hanging. The deceased had never to witness’s knowledge threatened to take her own life. George Sinclair Geddes gave evidence of having been called by the previous witness to the residence of the deceased, where he found the body hanging in the washhouse. The body was quite cold, and he at once communicated with the police. Sergeant Wade stated that when he examined the body a cloth was tied from the top of the head around the lower jaw as if the deceased had been suffering from tooth a die. The coroner returned a verdict that the deceased committed suicide by hanging while in a state of extreme piental depression caused by ill-health.