BROTHERS’ TRAGIC END

Hokitika Guardian, 13 December 1928, Page 4

BROTHERS’ TRAGIC END

RESULT OF ACUTE MENTAL DEPRESSION.

(By Telegraph—Press Association)

HAMILTON, December 12.

An inquest on the brothers, Stanley Owen Chapman, and Bruce Trevor Chapman, victims of the tragedy of December 2. was held at Pataruru today.

l)r S. L. Haslett stated that the fumes from rabbit poison, which Stanley had been using, might have had a depressing effect on the mind. Eileen Chapman, a sister said that about a year ago Stanley had a nervous breakdown, and went away for two months, and recovered his mental condition. On the night of the tragedy he was normal. Stanley had been burning a fumieniit lor rabbits, and ceased because the fumes affected his head.

Witness testified to being wakened in the night and finding both her brothers shot. Thomas Chapman, the father, said

that Stanley suffered from insomnia > and nervousness. He thought this and the fumes brough on a sudden mental aberration.

A verdict was returned that Stanley Chapman met his death by a bullet wound self-inflicted, while in a state of acute mental depression, caused by overwork, and intensified by the inhalation of fumes from carbon-bissul-phido inproperlv used in poisoning rabbits, and Hint Bruce Chapman met Ids death bv a gunshot gmmd, apparently inflicted by Stanley, whilst the latter was in a state ol acute mental depression.