BUSINESSMAN’S SUICIDE

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 24 August 1933, Page 5

BUSINESSMAN’S SUICIDE

RECEIVERS IN POSSESSION. LETTERS LEFT TO FAMILY. (By Telegraph —Press Association.' AUCKLAND, Aug. 23. An inquest was held before Mr W. ,R. .McKean, S.M., to-day concerning the death of Claude Meredith Fenwick, aged 54, managing director of T. and S. Morrin and Fenwick Limited, who was found dead in his office late on Monday afternoon.

Cecil Tilley, warehouse manager, said he heard tne report of a gun and rushed into Fenwick’s office and found him sitting in his chair apparently dead. No person left Fenwick’s office on Monday morning. Fenwick gave witness a single-barrelled shotgun with the request that he should have the striking pin fixed. Witness took the gun to a gunsmith and it was brought ■back that afternoon.

Evidence was given by John Murracy, secretary of the firm, that owing to the financial state of the firm the bank had put in a receiver about a month ago. During the past fortnight Fenwick appeared to be more cheerful than usual.

Detective-Sergeant McHugh produced 11 letters written by Fenwick to members of his family, business associates and friends. A note left on the desk read as follows: “I finished my letters at 1.15 a.m. this morning and pulled' the trigger and nothing happened. The gun had a defective pin and would not strike. Then I had to go home and go to bed. Ironical wasn’t it? There was a sort of tragedy to comedy touch about it; that is why I am still here waiting for the gun to be prepared.” The coroner returned a verdict that Fenwick died as the result of haemorrhage following a gunshot wound in the left chest, the wound being selfinflicted. The letters indicated what he was passing through, said the coroner.