WATSON'S BAY MYSTERY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18018, 17 February 1922, Page 6

WATSON'S BAY MYSTERY.

NEW ZEALANDER'S DEATH.

An inquiry was held in Sydney by ths city coroner regarding the death of Charles William Winters, aged 38 years, whose | body was found on December 1, lying m ! an extraordinary position among the rocks at Laing's Point, Watson's Bay. The coroner, following the medical evidence, recorded a finding of death from asphyxia, but found the evidence inadequate to indicate how Winters came to be suffocated. Dr. Stratford Sheldon, who had made an examination of the body, said death was undoubtedly due to asphyxia. There was nothing to suggest drowning as the cause. Information supplied to suggested that Winters had taken poison, though the stomach and contents betrayed no trace of poisoning. It "'as possible that the poison might have disappear* before the examination was made. The man had been found with his head jammed face downwards between two rocks, ana it was not impossible that, while scrambling over the rocks, he fell, striking his head between the two rocks, and suffocated in that position. The police had ascertained that Winters was a New Zealander, and had come w> Sydney suffering from a chronic ailment and until November last was_ an inmate of the Liverpool State Hospital. In »' letter found after his death he wrote Jo a New Zealand friend:-" I've 'Moscowed my. watch and chain. I had to do it. I was broke, and I am sending the *iclse» to 'Ginger,' and he can get them out. Id hate to see the Jews have them." He also declared that he had pureha«ed poutf* , and was going is " end it all."