“DEAD” MAN RETURNS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 3809, 23 June 1928, Page 3

“DEAD” MAN RETURNS.

SIX MONTHS AFTER FUNERAL,

WIFE'S TERRIBLE SHOCK

An extraordinary case of mistaken identity in England has come to light through the return to his home in Leeds, of a man named Robert Gordon Struan Robertson, an ex-service man, employed as a porter, who disappeared last October and who was believed to have been drowned. Mr. Robertson left his home in Leeds on the morning of October 1, to go to work at an hotel, but did not report, for duty. Nothing more was seen of him until two days later, when a man, answering his description, and giving the same name, called at the Skiplon Police Station in a dazed condition. He stayed the night in Skipton, and left the following morning, since when nothing was known of his movements. The naked body of a man, whose legs had been severed at the knees, evidently by the propeller blades of a tug, was found on November 7 in the River Aire, at West ITaddesley, near Selby. The body was identified by Mrs. Robertson and two friends of the missing man. There urns no question in the minds of those who saw the body that it was that of Robertson. The body had a scar in the side exactly similar to a wound srar in Mr. Robertson’s side. Following an inquest, at which a verdict of “Found drowned” Avas returned the body Avas buried on Armistice Day, in West Haddesley Churchyard. Mr. Robertson had seiwed in the Northumberland Fusiliers throughout the Avar, as a company quarter-mas-ter-sergeant, Avith an excellent re-

cord, and the coffin was covered with a Union Jack and gmrn military honours. The funeral expenses Avcre borne by the Leeds branch of the British Legion. Mrs. Robertson, following the supposed death of her husband , had been granted a widoAv’s pension in (he respect of herself and her daughter. When Mr. Robertson made his dramatic reappearance, he told his Avife that he remembered nothing of what had happened since the night before he left home, until the recollection of his name and address came back to him a couple of days preA’iously in Liverpool. He stated : “A feAV days ago a man Avho must have known me slapped me on the shoulder, and said, ‘ls that you, Robbie?' That made me think, and

T. recalled my name and Avhere T had come from. I found myself iu Li-

verpool. From, that point all is dim. I seem to have been Avalking for many hours, and am tired.” “It Avas a terrible shock to me,” declared Mrs. Robertson, describing her husband’s return, “I avus preparing to retire for the night. Suddenly I heard a knock on the door, and, opening it, I suav my husband standing in the shadoAvs. Before he could say anything he collapsed in the doorway, and I got him inside. There is no doubt nbout his identify. This is my husband.” Mrs. Robertson was wearing mourning for her husband, who is a son of the late Dr. Robertson, of Pickering, and an old Scarborough Grammar School boy.