HANGED HIMSELF.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 449, 20 March 1912, Page 5

HANGED HIMSELF.

FRANKTON STABBING AFFRAY AFTERMATH. Axel Snertings \ the central figure of the fatal stabbing affray in the Frankton Hotel, about a couple of months ago, committed suicide in the Mount Eden, Gaol on Monday night or sometime during yesterday morning. The circumstances of Snertinge s crime are still fresh in the memory of most readers. He had been drinking heavily at Frankton, and had, from some drunken impulse, drawn his kniffe and viciously attacked three men in the hotel. One of them, John Graham, died in the Hamilton Hospital on February 14th, as the result of injuries received no that occasion. There was a painful and pathetic scene in the hospital when Graham s dying depositions were being taken in the presence of assailant. Snertinge was overcome with remorse, broke down at the bedside of his dying victim, and expressed the wish that he could change places with the sufferer. Axel Snertinge was a Dane, 37 years of age. He was convicted of manslaughter, and sentenced to nine years' imprisonment to be followed by ten year' reformative treatment. His conduct in gaol had been nerfectly normal, and did not suggest in anv way that he was liable to com™i< any rash act of self-injory. Ha was seen at eight o'clock in the usual way when the warder went on his rounds preparatory to lights out. Next morning, about ten minutes to seven, he was found, when the cells were opened, hanging by his hammock from the ventilator in the wall of his cell. He had, apparently, stood up in his hammock to fasten the rope to the ventilator, and had then iumped from the hammock. The drop was not enough to cause dislocation, but he had been strangled by the tightening loop round his neck Th* doctor said that prisoner had been dead for several hours.