THE VICTORIA – STREET SUICIDE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12003, 27 June 1902, Page 6

THE VICTORIA - STREET SUICIDE.

Ax inquest was held yesterday at the Criterion Hotel, before Mr. Gresham, coroner, into the death of the man Eugene Pitaby, who committed suicide on the previous night by jumping from a window in the "Victoria Hotel. Dr. W. Williams deposed to having attended deceased since Tuesday last. The man was run down', and suffering from a delusion. Witness advised Mr. O'Connor, the licensee of the Victoria Hotel, where deceased stayed, to have him watched, and in view of his condition directed that he might have some champagne. Witness did not anticipate that deceased would harm himself, though he considered it only proper to take precautions. At about nine o'clock on Wednesday evening he was called in, and found deceased dead at the hotel. His skull was much smashed, and he had bled profusely. The cause of death was the total fracture of the skull and loss of blood. Timothy Beehan O'Connor deposed to deceased having boarded at the Victoria Hotel for the past fortnight, informing witness he had come from the Thames. He had £80, which witness took care of for a, time, eventually returning it at deceased's request. At eight p.m. on Wednesday witness saw deceased in the commercial room upstairs, and facing Victoria-street. Two other men were then in the room, one of whom (Mr. Smith) had undertaken to look after him. At half-past eight deceased was found on the pavement below with his skull fractured. He had never seen deceased the worse for liquor. It would have been almost impossible for deceased to have fallen out of the window accidentally. On the advice of Dr. Williams, and with the consent of deceased, witness had employed James Smith to attend on the deceased from last Tuesday. Smith gave deceased his meals, and slept in a bed in the same room with ham. James Smith, clerk, Albert-street, gave corroborative evidence. He was constantly with deceased from Tuesday until about a-quarter past eight on Wednesday night, when he left him in the commercial room with a boarder named O'Keefe, and a nurse girl employed at the hoteL He was not away above a-quarter of an hour, when deceased was found dead. Mary Burke, the nurse girl, deposed to leaving deceased in the commercial roem five minutes before he was picked up on the footpath. When she left him he was reading the paper, and seemed quite rational. The jury returned a verdict of " Suicide whilst mentally deranged."