Taxi-cab Drama

Manawatu Times, Volume 65, Issue 60, 11 March 1940, Page 10

Taxi-cab Drama

NAVAIi MAN’S SUICIDE Stanley William • Norton, leading btoward or. a warship, tossed a florin to decide if he should riioot himself, said a friend, Miss Bette Jackson, of Crow's Nest, at an inquest at the Sydney Coroner’s Court. Miss Jackson said that she was sitting in a taxi at Naremburn talking to Norton for three hours on Februarv 13th, from 8 p.in. onwards. He produced a revolver and said he was going to shoot himself. “I am a born gambler, and I’ll toss for iny life,” Norton had said. Miss Jackson said she told him, "Heads you don’t.” He tossed the coin and it came down heads. About half an hour later as she was walking to the tram to go home she heard three shots, she said, and found Norton with a wound in the head, lying in a stormwater drain, at Flat Rook. He breathed for 10 minutes and died. Alexander William McPhee, a steward of the same warship, said that on the morning of February 13th Norton mentioned something about £3OOO monetary trouble over b*»okn»aking. He got McPhee to witness his will. The police evidence was that several days before his death Norton drew £250 from :i Melbourne Savings Bank. "This is one of those cases that contain extensive betting operations.** said the City Coroner (Mr. Oram), who returned a finding that Norton died from the results of a bullet wound selfinflicted.-