“DEAD” MAN SPEAKS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 2703, 4 March 1924, Page 4

“DEAD” MAN SPEAKS.

STRANGE EDINBURGH CASE. LODGING HOUSE TRAGEDY. MEDICAL EXPLANATION. An extraordinary deduction was advanced by medical experts in connection with a shooting tragedy in Edinburgh, the victims of which were a young electrical engineer, Frederick Allan, and his wife, who had been residing in rooms. As a result of the medical examination of the case the theory was advanced that when Allan’s landlady found him after hearing two shots fired, and when he spoke to her, making apparently quite an intelligent request that she should send for a doctor, he was contrary to appearances, dead, the voice and muscles were merely obeying the commands which had issued from the brain a second or two previously. An alternative explanation of great interest was offered by another doctor. He said: —The practically dead man did not utter the words attributed to him, but the landlady, entering the room, and shocked on finding the man severely wounded and streaming with blood, herself thought of sending for a doctor, and that she, while in a state of intense emotional excitement, projected her thoughts outwards and imagined she heard the words addressed to her by the man.

This process of projection outwards with the hearing of one’s own thoughts in words, as if spoken by another person, is very often met with in cases of mental disorder. There is, however, no reason why this process, in common with others, which we are pleased to call abnormalities should not occasionally occur in persons of sound mind. This theory was not countenanced by the landlady. She declares that she was certain Allan spoke to her. On hearing the second shot, she said, she went through to the lobby and found Allan’s door ajar. She knocked, and called out, “What’s wrong, Mrs Allan?’’’ Thereupon the door slammed to, and she received a, sharp knock over the left eye. “There is no imagination about that,” she said. “It was not a very severe blow, but there was a slight swelling above my eye for a day or two.”

The door, she stated was immediately opened again in a manner suggesting that the slamming had been involuntary, and Allan appeared, blood oozing from his ear and trickling down his face. “For God’S sake fetch a policeman and doctor, Mrs —,” he gasped. “1 am bleeding to death.” Not grasping the full significance of the situation at once, the landlady attempted to pass the matter off lightly by remarking that lie had nearly knocked her head off with the door. Allan made no reply to her observations, and repeated his appeal word for word, again introducing her name as he spoke. She observed a peculiar look pass over his face the second time he spoke. It was at this point that the landlady noticed Mrs Allan lying on the floor, I thought then there had been blows and the poor lassie had fainted,” she said, “and I ran into my neighbour’s for assistance. I heard a sharp noise again when I reached the landing, but it was the neighbours who told me that it was a revolver shot, and that two shots had been fired before.

“A police ambulance driver stays near. We brought him at once, and he told us they were both dead. I did not go hack to the room again. From the time Allan first spoke to me at the door to the firing of the third shot was a matter of only a minute or two.”