UNIVERSITY SENSATION

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 May 1931, Page 10

UNIVERSITY SENSATION

EVIDENCE at the inquest. The veil was lifted at a coroner s inqtiest last month from What, foi tome days, was regarded as the mos inscrutable mystery ever associated with the historic University ot CamhridP'G An hour before dawn on 1 ebruary 23 one of the younger undergraduates Fmtcis ’Charles John Ellis, aged -19. was .discovered dead in his rooms with arms and legs pinioned am Vent after the manner in which a fowl lies trussed up in a poulterer s shop a woollen gag across his mouth and hn bead and face enveloped in handkei 'hiek Soiiiething like 20 handkw diiete were employed ! h °, s “S' and pinioning process, and hit, hnkie wore bound with military puttees, plus ... length of electric wire. " Detectives summoned from Scotlanc Yard in collaboration with Sn B.in

ard Spilsbury, the well-known patholo-o-ist examined and discussed a vanety oJ theories to account for the amazing tr-medv. Murder they rejected nn mediately, because there was no evidence, circumstance or motive to sup-port-it, arid they were left w.th the three following explanations Suicide in a manner to suggest mui deri ragging carried to extremes by other students or s«eu‘ “d accidental suffocation while expeiimeifting with bonds from which the victim thought he Could extricate h*mbeThe coronbr stated that Ellis, was studying for an archaeological and anthropological tripos, and that his body was found by a college servant. The night before the discovery, EHw returned to his rooms after hall and loclt&i the oriter door. A c< ? lles ’®ls called on Ellis between 11 and IRIS at night, and found the outer door locked. He knocked loudly five 01 six times and got no answer. Healing a movement inside, as though someone was breathing heavily, he looked

through the letter-box, but could see no light, and concluded that Ellis had SO ?L to eoroS continued: •■lmportant disclosures have to be made about Ellis’life at school. There Ellis used to bind up his friends for fun on chans with knots above the elbows and on the legs, and used to place handkerchiefs aci’bss the mouth and bK ndtol<Hi bin The knots were reefei knots. Sover; Ellis himself used to' be bound and would then try to release

himself. . , . fv - “Competitions were organised m tying each other up and trying to get away, with this important exception there is no recollection of anyone except once, of Ellis tying himself up it you say he did it, then your difficulty Will be: Did he do this, piiending to take his own life, or was this don not knowing at the time of the t>en ous and fatal consequence that, in fact, followed?”

Evidence by the Mother.

The first witness was the widowed /.nether of the dead student. Her son, •she stated, was happy, and was m Ing most favourable progress in hib studied, and never uttered or wrote,a word of complaint. He was a health normal boy,” wlib had spent part of his life in Rhodesia, and was her onb to the foreman of thb jury, Mrs Fills rebefited that she quite sure her soft had tip love affair. “My r.bii Wils very yo'ttiig for Wage, and vbry Shy of girls,” she dadeu. M'ter His tatW’fi death the' hoy had “onlv the nattiMl tWpmsiori that any boy would feel wtiteii W father passed of the JuiW: Bn you tell iis whether he ever tied himself up at hb?he? , Mrs. Hills: I have never known my bb4 to tie Hiitiself nft at &11. 1 have never seen him tie afiy kiiot. , Robert H. frlhbk, the College servant Whß (liscdvel’bd tlie tragedy, said he last SiiW Fills on thfe fatal Sunday cVehihg rttnning toward his rooms about a-Qti&rte'r past six. Next morin iiig witness found the door of Ellis sitting room rtifHcult th Open. “I pushed behind this door,” he. belated, “and went in ami saw what you ail know. Fiyst of all, 1 thought it might be a joke, that soiheoiie had t>ut tirte- figure there ,to frighten Mr. fillifc. When he £ up. ° “1 went into his hedtbbih,. Wut found the bed Had not been slept in. I rfe turned to the rooin and Idbkhd at the figure again. Tttfen K dawned uptfu me that the thing had happened. It Was Mi-. Ellis, bbiffid on the floor. Thei-e Was no disorder ift thb sitting robin—jiist four chair fcfiwMs on the floor ahd up against tlie dobf; Both the doors were unlocked. Dh Searle, who iioihihfinds tlie Cambridge University. Field AifiiMlanch gafte, evidence that he sujhinoned to Ellis’ room, add fbniid liim lying on the floor, abblit a fobt from the door. He Wits bduhd, triiflsed, blififffolded, dead. Wbye. keWi white handkerchiefs tied in reef bows at the back of thb head find th'e jaw was similhi-ly bandaged. “I removed one of the bandages, and found a piece of flannel over his iributh and nose;” expraihed the doctor. “They wbre ail special boWs, either reef bows or reef knots. The b'aiidages on the legs were ilsb yei-y peculiar, and similar to the ones We use irt the Thoifias splint drill. They formed a figure of eight, and there Was an extension around the aiikle.”

j Asked if the bows or .knots would be difficult to tie oh oneself, the doctor replied.: “They have to be tied by ■ sbmeone who knows.”

Supposing Ellis had the gag in his mouth and his hose covered, witness thought, it tVould be impossible for him to tie tlie bows himself, but they could be tied before the gag was in-

serted. “I can tie the bows myself,’ went on Dr. Searle, “and in a demonstration it took me three minutes 20 seconds to tie my head up in the way Mr. Ellis was tied without the gag.” Ellis hdd probably been dead from seven to eight hours when he, was found. i Di, Searle demonstrated with his owh handkerchief how the Wrists were tied, and had great difficulty in unty. ing his wrists afterwards. He called ttteniion to the fact that the left wrist Was cut right into- by the twist. A jaw bandage was tied round Ellis’ head, and over the top of the face was a piece of flannel. Seven handkerchiefs were tied in reef hows over the face, from the brow to the chin. Use of the Gag. Counsel: Unless some method can be shown by which that gag would have been Worked into the month without the aid of one’s hands, one would assume that the bandages had been tied after the gag Was' in Hie mouth, and the wrist bandages and tne bandages above the elbows must

have been put on after the gag vas in the mouth? —1 do not agree.—l am assuming that unless the gag couid have been put in after the bandages were on, the bandages must have been tied over the gag. That follows, does it not? —Yes, certainly.— iheiefoie, the hands must have been free to tie the bandages? —Yes. Does it not follow, therefore, that the bandages on the arms and wrists must have been done after the bandages on the face had been tied. they might or might not have been done t If he did it himself they must have .been done. . Assuming that Ellis had done thu himself, how long do you think a poison would be able to breathe after gagging himself in this manner. Fifty seconds at the utmost. Sir Bernard Spilsbury gave a demonstration of the way in vvhica the handkerchiefs were tied. Electric flex, he explained, was crossed at the back and passed through a loop foT m ' cd in one of the Handkerchiefs ued lound the arms. The wrists were held together fairly tightly, the palms of the hands together, and the fingeis partly open and partly interlocked. The handkerchief round the wrists had been twisted several times. Another handkerchief passed under the first one, but did not encircle the wrist. The hands and fingers were deep blue or livid, except where the ligature was pressing. The colour indicated that circulation had been interfered with by the tightness of the bandage, and that it had been tied during life. A leather strap passed round the upper arms and crossed the back. The ends wore passed through a buckle, but it was not fastened., 1 .a blue handkerchief encircled the ’ neck arid was hanging dov.-n at me [ back’, passing round the strap and ‘ electric flex. The handkerchielstied ’ round the head were loosely fastened • with reef bows at the back. A piece : of bath flannel covered the face, and 1 the handkerchiefs were tied over this i fairly loosely.

SOFT COLLARS AS ROPE. Describing the head bandage, Sir Bernard explained that.two softco lars had been made up into a lope- n side a handkerchief, and this w..s round the mouth and nostrils. The Coroner: Would it be if deceased tied himself, up, foi him to have released himself.’ % Sir Bernard: It would have taken some little time to unfasten hinmclf. If he had become flurried he might not have been able to do it at nil. • Would it be possible, without the aJstanco ol another, to extricate the bop d s 9 —i have fastened my own ha"ft'very tightly sovora! times an a person could fasten himse * so ti o h ly that it would be very difficult to untwist them again. Between the teeth, Sir Bernard related, in "further description of hu Semination of the portion of a handkerchief. The ha

kerclv’df was torn by Sir Bernard duitng it? removal. The gap be worn, the teeth was very, narrow, and h - • ealised there was something in a F ditioh to the handkerchief. Marks of blood on the handkerchief were. no. there when it was removed. Witness found inside the handker chief a small sponge, which ho agieed was the sort of thing that might be Jnduded in a golf outfit Thn sponge was completely wrapped u n tk. handkerchief. The tongue had been pressed downward, but not backwan, and the top of the tongue was close agatat the P back teeth. There were Sa injuries to the litis, cheeks, tongue, or palate, and the teeth had not been loosened in any way. Certainly no violence had been used. Tho Coroner: Can you tell im ho he got into the position ill he was found?— Probably by falling backward, either accidentally, by losn his balance, or intentionally, and producing bruises on the points of tire elbows by striking the ground, then rolling on to his left side, and getting his mouth and nostrils covered completely by the cushions. Sir Bernard emphasised that, in niu opinion, no one else took any pai t m the tying-up. ’ There was no indication that anyone else had had anything to do with it. “He mi»ht have lost consciousness at the moment m the fall,” explained the pathologist, “and if his mouth and nostrils became covered by the fall the inability to breathe vtould date from that

point.” , 4, x The Coroner: Do you think that there were any indications of selfmurder? —No. I cannot absolutely ex elude suicide, but the indications pointed far more to accidental death than suicide. After further evidence to the ettccl that in earlier school days’ Ellis and his companions used to tie each other up—the coroner suggested to the jury that it was open to thorn to return one of the three following verdicts: — an open verdict, suicide, or accident >1 death. The jury, after an hour’s absence, returned a. verdict of Accidental death.” The cause was asphyxia, due to an accident. No blame was attached to the college authorities.