School Captain’s Tragedy

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 762, 7 September 1929, Page 18

School Captain’s Tragedy

Disappointed in Love

HHINT of a love disap- i pointment and a drama- 1 < tic story of liis death j ■were features of the in- i quest on Donald Cook, i aged 18, of Bexley ! ; Heath, captain of the Dartford Gram- I : mar School, who poisoned himself in ! a wood. Violet Gibbins. a 15-year-old school- j girl, said that she had known Donald 1 Cook for about a year. It was only an ordinary friendship. During a motor drive he suddenly • stopped, said, “I am fed up with life,” 1 and took out his guitar. Both of them sat down on an em- j bankment. He played one tune and then showed her some sticks of white stuff in a match-box. He said: “Goodbye,” and dashed into the woods. She went after him and tried to stop him, but he said, “If you don’t go back I will tie you up.” After smoking a cigarette he put some white stuff in his mouth and fell to the ground. Cook’s father, a retired engineer,

in earlier evidence said his sou had occasional fits of depression. Boy’s Letters Mr. Cook said that his son sat for an examination about a month ago, but failed in Latins. He seemed more depressed after this, and took it to heart: but gave his parents no indication that he intended to commit suicide. Three letters which were found in the boy's bedroom were handed to the coroner. Mr. Cook said there was no word of farewell in them. Mr. Cook said his son had been interested in a young woman for about two months. Last March his son told him that she had given him up, and this, followed by iris scholastic disappointment, seemed to depress him more. The coroner, in summing up, said that Miss Gibbins was not the girl mentioned as having broken her friendship with Cook. Death from cyanide of potassium poisoning self-administered during temporary insanity was the verdict.