SUICIDE MYSTERY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 April 1938, Page 2

SUICIDE MYSTERY

DEATH OF PLYMOUTH MAN. SLEEP-WALKING THEORY. The theory that a man had gassed himself while walking in his sleep was put forward at an inquest at Plymouth, England, on Mark Wellington Eke, aged 49, a ship’s fitter employed in Devonport Dockyard. Eke was found dead with his head in a gas oven at his home in Pier Street, Plymouth. The coroner, Mr W. E. J. Major, returned a verdict that he took his life by inhaling coal gas, and that probably he was walking in his sleep or the balance of his mind was disturbed.

Frederick Eke, the dead man’s son, said his father was subject to sleepwalking, and would frequently get up during the night, dress himself, and go through the motions of his work. Leslie Burgoyne, brother-in-law, said that the oven tap was turned on, but the window was open and there had been no attempt to seal the door. Dr. H. G. Ludolf, police surgeon, said it was conceivable that Eke walked in his sleep and was not conscious when it happened. The coroner said there was no doubt that Eke committed suicide. Nobody else could have put his head in the gas oven or turned on the tap. It was only a question of his responsibility for his action. That matter he, the coroner, would leave open.