SUICIDE IN BEDROOM

Taranaki Daily News, 17 December 1926, Page 15 (Supplement)

SUICIDE IN BEDROOM

LUCKY ESCAPE FROIH ffiURDER. “Suicide while of unsound mind" was the jury’s verdict at the Bellinal Green inquest on tire man wild died after a struggle to a girl’s bedroom. He was identified as a married man oy his widow, who said she was living, a; a Nottingham workhouse. Addressing the jury, the Coroner the dead man, - whose name was Joseph Williamson, a motor mechanic, aged 43-, of Copenhagen Street, had 1 been paying attention to a Miss Davies, ef Cambridge Road, Bethnal Green. i Sllortty before his death they got to know that he was a married man, and told hta not to go to the house again. He made his way into the house, and when the daughter found there was se.meeme in the room she" screamed. The father rushed to, to find the . man swallowing lysol, and shortly after that he collapsed and was removed to hospital. Mrs Ellen Williamson, of the Bagthorpe Infirmary, Nottingham, identifymg the dead man as her husband, said:. “I am to- a workhouse because I air homeless. We have'not been able . to; get a bouse.” Miss Alice Annie Davies, a tall, good-looking girl, then gave evidence) “I had been to. steep when sometiling touched nay head,” said the wit-! incss. “I got a great fright, and, put-i : ting out my hand, I felt someone. “I screamed, and my father came up d switched on the light, when I saw Williamson drinking from a bottle. A sc.uffte followed, and father took him downstairs.” She identified messages on a cardboard box. found in her bedroom as in Williamson’s hand-writing. The messages read: “Alice, don’t ; speak, or you* life in danger. Joe near. Keep silent.” “Don’t say a werd if you don’t want trouble. I ; warn you. Joe in the room. Silence. ! Study your life aß a, mine.—Yours ever.” When she told him not to come to ■Oft house again he said:; ‘‘lf I do not have -yon no 1 one else shall.” The Coroner- said that Miss Davies was to be corgratulated upon her escape, for it seemed as if tfte man’s iiitention had been to take Miss Davies’ life and. then dramatically to commit suicide.■ Reurning- a verdict of suicide while of unsound mind, the jury said there ! was no reflection upon the conduct of either Mr or Niss Davids.