DEAD MAN IN LIFT SHAFT

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 July 1936, Page 11

DEAD MAN IN LIFT SHAFT

AN OPEN VERDICT. LONDON, June 12. An open verdict was recorded yesterday by the Paddington coroner, Mr Ingleby Oddie, on William Leslie Malin, 42, a commercial traveller, of Chorley Wood, Herts. Malin’s body was found in the wen of a motor-car lift at a St. John s Wood service garage on May 5. He disappeared from home on January 9 and the body had apparently been several weeks in the lift shaft. The inquest had been adjourned for further inquiries as to how it got there. On the last occasion it had been suggested that Malin was earning about £l,OOO a year. Yesterday it was pointed out that for the last five years his earnings averaged £657' annually. Evidence was given that, he was a good salesman. He. was seldom under the influence of drink. Divisional Detective Inspector Drewstated that inquiries had yielded no further evidence as to bow Malin met his death. The coroner referred to a bus ticket found on the body and said that one theory was that Malin found himself in the wrong ’bus, got into another, overshot Laker Street, and get out by St. John’s Wood Road. In a state of mental confusion he might have tried to find St. John’s Wood Station and mistaken th© entrance of the garage for the station—quite a possible thing for a man under tho influence of drink. On the other hand, Malin might have wandered about for hours, missed his last train and gone to the garage which ho knew to try and get a car to take him home. Malin might have given a push against the doors of the lift, which opened like exit

doors, and he might have walked into “a dark space,” thinking that tin; exit led into the street. That was probably the correct theory, but there was no evidence to support it. • Tho coroner described as fantastic . Iho theory that Malin had been run ; ever Ly a car add placed in the bot- : tom Of the lift well. “I feel satisfied

that there was no foul play, and I feel pretty well satisfied that it wag an accidental death,” he added.