ASYLUM TRAGEDY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 10 November 1924, Page 5

ASYLUM TRAGEDY.

MENTAL DEFECTIVE MURDERED

BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION —COPYRIGHT > Received Nov. 10, 11.10 a.m. SYDNEY, Nov. 10. In connection with the Haivkesbury murder, the corpse on examination showed a wound in the head, made by a blow sufficiently heavy to render the man unconscious, but death was due to drowning. There were no other marks of violence on the body. Suspicion attaches to one patient at the hospital. Detectives are making inquiries on this line, but there is little hope of a successful elucidation of the crime, as practically all the patients are in a pitiable state of lunacy and are • incapable of being questioned. mi ij ■ ■ SYDNEY, Nov. 9. Ahe body of Harold Besley, aged 27, who has been mentally defective since birth, was found trussed up in a sack in the Hawkesbury . river near the Milson Island mental asylum, of which he was an inmate. ' Apparently he was murdered by a heavy blow oh the skull.

police believe he was murdered if a * e “ ow inmate, as the thoroughness that characterised the crime is typical of nearly every murder committed by a madman during the past decade. Milson Island contains 140 patients, jtli of whom are believed to be harmless imbeciles, epileptics, and idiots. Besley was very popular with the attendants and. patients.