FOUND DROWNED IN HARBOUR
INOUEST ON LYTTELTON VICTIM. Dominion Special Service. Christchurch, February ‘22. When the body of Charles Janies Mahan, of Timaru, was found floating in the Lyttelton Harbour on February 4, the circumstances suggested foal play. Suspicions were settled to-day at the resumed inquest, when the Coroner (Mr. H. A. Young) returned a verdict that Mahan had been found drowned. Dr. T. L. Crooke, who made a postmortem examination of the body, expressed tile opinion that death was due to drowning. The wounds on the body were probably caused by fish. The body had been in the water for about four hours, and there were no marks of violence apart from the fish bites. The watchman, who first noticed the body, stated that there were a number of dogfish about it when recovered. Albert William Erickson, of Lyttelton, said that on the evening of Fel> ruary 3 he was swimming by the Gladstone pier from 6.50 p.m. to 9.30 p.m. Mahan was there, and .seemed a bit intoxicated. fie talked a good deal about swimming. Witness last saw him about 9.50 p.m., when lie disappeared behind the Harbour Board shed on the wharf. Detective-Sergeant Young said a search was made of the whole of the waterfront, but there was no trace of blood or any clue as to how Mahan got into the water. Mahan came from Timaru on January 31, stayed in Christchurch for a few days, and after borrowing a pound, he went to Lyttelton on Fridav, February 3, and spent the day drinking. The contents of the stomach were analysed, but there was no trace of poison.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19280223.2.6
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 124, 23 February 1928, Page 3
Word count
Tapeke kupu
272FOUND DROWNED IN HARBOUR Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 124, 23 February 1928, Page 3
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Dominion. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.