RONGOTAI FIRE ECHO

Evening Star, Issue 25927, 19 October 1946, Page 6

RONGOTAI FIRE ECHO

DEATH OF WATCHMAN WORRIED OVER OCCURRENCE (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Oct. 19. There was no suggestion that the Rongotai wool store , fire" was any fault of the watchman, William Arthur Haldane, but he had been apparently so worried that* he had been unable to sleep afterwards. This was the opinion of the coroner, Mr W. G. L. Hellish, S.M., at the inquest yesterday into the death of Haldane, who was found hanging in the washhouse of his Lyall Bay home on October 6. . • Haldane was apparently in an abnormal state of mind at the time of the fire, and the fire accentuated this condition, said the Coroner. In a statement written shortly before his death, Haldane had said: “I feel ill; not had much sleep since the No. 4 wool store fire. There are only two ways open for me—to live on as an imbecile, or die. I prefer death.” Haldane and another watchman had been questioned by the police shortly after the fire, said the Coroner, and in the statement he had said: “J found the police most fair and just, and I have not kept anything back.” The Coroner returned a verdict of suicide by hanging.