WOMAN LEAPS TO DEATH

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 26 November 1938, Page 9

WOMAN LEAPS TO DEATH

FROM SYDNEY HOTEL WINDOW AT HEIGHT OF SHOPPING CRUSH A RESIDENT OF DUNEDIN lU.P A.-B.V Electric Telegraph —Copyrlßrht.l SYDNEY, 251 ll November. A sensational plurtge to instant death from a fourth storey window of the Mote. 1 Australia occurred tins evening during the height of the city shopping crush, the victim being a Dunedin woman, Miss Muriel Hare, aged about 50. The body landed in Castlereagh street o i the tram track with a terrific* thud. A girl employed at the Prince Edward Theatre directly opposite was »p parently the only actual eyewitness. She let go a piercing scream when she saw the woman hurtling through the air from a height of 120 feet. A strange feature of the tragedy was that the body shot over the hotel verandah of the Hotel Astoria, giving the impression that Miss Hare leapt well forward with the deliberate intention of missing it, plunging to her death. The body was shockingly injured, particularly the head. Ah enormous crowd gathered and traffic was brought to a standstill while ah ahibiilanfce fiibved the body and the fire brigade eliminated tile tiftces of the tragedy.

1 he police hare ascertained that Miss Hare was due to sail by the Awatea at 5 o’clock to-night for Wellington. She arrived hack in the hotel from a shopping expedition in a taxicab and hurried upstairs 15 minutes before the sailing hour. She leapt to her death without acquainting anybody of her intentions. The taxicab was actually waiting to take her to the Awatea when her body crashed on to the tram track. Miss Hare booked in at the Hotel Austialia on 4th November. Since then she absented herself for brief periods in order to go into hospital and pay a visit to Canberra, but no motive for her act could be discovered beyond a strong suggestion that Her Health was not good.

Before she became a masseuse, Miss Hare, during the tithe of the infantile paralysis epidemic last year, did a Vd9t amount of voluntary work among children, and in this and other ways, earned the admiration of a large number of citizens.

She received her training at the Otago School of Massage, and was recognised a« one of the leading masseuses in Dunedin. Her mother and two sisters reside H Dunedin.