SUICIDE IN A CELL.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 227, 23 March 1912, Page 5

SUICIDE IN A CELL.

PRISONER'HANGS HIMSELF. SEQUEL TO FATAL STABBING AFFRAY, By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, 3£«rch 19. Axel Snertinge, a Dane, the central figure of a fatal stabbing affray in the Frankton Hotel about a couple of months ago, committed suicide in Mount Eden gadi last night or some time during the morning. Prior to his arrest Snertinge had been drinking heavily at Frankton, and had from some drunken impulse drawn his knife and viciously attacked three men in the hotel. One of them, John Graham, died in Hamilton Hospital on February 14th, as the result of injuries received on that occasion. There was a painful and pathetic scene in the hospital when Graham's dying depositions were being taken in the presence of his assailant. Snertinge was overcome with remorse, broke down at the bedside of his dying victim, and exPassed a wish that he could change places wtth the sufferer. He was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to nine years' imprisonment, to he followed by ten years' reformative treatment. His conduct in gaol had been perfectly normal, and did not suggest in any way that he was liable to commit any rash act of self-injury. He was seen at 8 o'clock last night in the usual way when a warder went on his rounds preparatory to "lights out." This morning, about ten minutes to seven, lie was found, when the cells were opened, hanging by his hammock rope from a 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 jumped from the hammock, The drop wias not enough to cause dislocation, but he had been strangled by the tightening loop round his neck. The doctor, when'called in, said that prisoner had been dead for several hours.