BOY'S SUICIDE

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 74, 29 March 1933, Page 13

BOY'S SUICIDE

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

AFTER FAMILY QUARREL

CORONER'S COMMENTS

EOTOEUA, March 28.

A verdict of suieids while in a depressed mental- condition was returned by the Coroner, Mr. S. L. Patcrson, S.M., following an inquest today into circumstances of the death of Patrick Burghan, a fifteen-year-old High School boy who was found shot with a rifle beside him in a room of his home on February 13. ■

Evidence was given by Leslie Taylor Clarke, that on the night of the tragedy, when passing the boy's home, he heard a violent domestic quarrel between the deceased's'mother and his stepfather.

The- deceased's stepfather, 1\ B. ilcArthur, admitted the quarrel and said he left the house for a period afterwards. He had just 'returned when he heard a shot, and found tho boy shot with a rifle beside him. He said the boy had interfered in a quarrel, and witness resented this, but did not consider tho quarrel a serious matter.

In returning the verdict, the Coroner said he was not-satisfied with tho stepfather's evidence as to tho quarrel, and he considered that the boy's state -of mental depression was aggravated by this disturbance. Thiags had been said during tho quarrel which should never have been said by a husband to a wife, and in his opinion this affected the boy, who, tho evidence showed, had a sensitive nature.