JUMPED TO DEATH.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXV, Issue 10365, 24 March 1927, Page 4

JUMPED TO DEATH.

SAD FATE OF AIINISTER'S •-SECRETARY.

WELLINGTON, .March 23. To-dav Air E, Rage, S.AI. (.Coroner) presided at an inquest concerning the death of Leonard Edwin Johnson, private secretary to the Minister of Agriculture, which occurred on Sunday night. Thomas Smithson, night watchman on duty at Parliamentary Buildings that night, gave evidence that early on Alonday morning, while his rounds, he opened the basement door and saw deceased lying in the yard directly underneath the parapet ol the building (which is over 50ft high.) Police Sergt. Clausen stated that lie had been called to the scene of the fatality, lie went up to deceased's room and on the table found four letters addressed in deceased’s hand-writing-—one to Air T. M. Willard, one to the Public Trustee, one lo the Hon. 0. J. Hawken, and one to Air 13. N. G. Poulton, secretary to the Alinister of Internal Affairs. “These are private letters containing matter irrelevant to this inquiry,” said the Coroner. Air Page said the evidence showed that deceased was in a despondent frame of mind and the letters clearly indicated that lie intended committing suicide. He found that deceased, while in a despondent frame of mind, took his own life by jumping off the parapet o’ Parliamentary Buildings some time in the evening of A 1 arch 20.—P.A.