FACE OF LON CHANEY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 3, Issue 641, 20 September 1933, Page 2

FACE OF LON CHANEY

MAN'S FATE IN PADDED CELL. A man who pleaded at his trial for murder that he had seen a vision of the late Lon C'haney, the film actorj pulling faces at him, committed suicide recently in a padded cell at Parkhurst Prison, Isle of Wight. The man, Robert Williams, cut a girl's throat in Hyde Park and wa^ sentenced to death in January, 1929. The defence was that he was suffering. from epileptic insanity, and he was lafterwards reprieved. At the" inquest an officer said that ) Williams was sent to Parkhurst last May from Maidstone as a man with suicidal tendencies. He had twiee tried to kill himself. He had periodical bursts. A few days before his death he smashed windows and assaulted olhcers and was put into a strait jacket .and placed in a padded cell. When he became calmer the jacket was removed, but for his own safety he was kept in the padded cell. Every five minutes he was looked at, but he managed to pile up mattresses, and evidently dived headlong from the top to the concrete floor. He died three hours later.