DETERMINED SUICIDE

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12424, 19 April 1926, Page 8

DETERMINED SUICIDE

HANGED FROM AN AERIAL MAN’S REPEATED ATTEMPTS. A remarkable story of a man who, to end his life, cut his throat in several places, and then hanged himself from a wireless aerial, was told at a Liverpool inquest lately. William Ainsworth, who was found hanging in the garden of a house, had made four attempts, it was stated, to commit suicide. . , First of all deceased tried to hang himself from a water-pipe, but his necktie broke. He then hacked at the artery in his left wrist with a razor, inflicting 14 or 15 severe cuts. Then he' cut his throat in seven places, and, though lie had lost a large of blood, he walked 50 yards to hang himself from a wireless aerial by means of a belt and handkerchief.

According to a medical witness, Ainsworth’s death was not due to strangulation, hut to shock following severe loss of blood. The man, added the doctor, was dying rapidly when ho went to hang himself, and death was not accelerated by the hanging. Ainsworth was said to have had a severe attack of pneumonia, from which ho had not recovered, and the coroner recorded a verdict of suicide while of unsound mind, remarking that it was a “most extraordinary case.”