FALL TO DEATH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 December 1938, Page 7

FALL TO DEATH

INQUEST ON MISS MURIEL HARE IN SYDNEY

OPEN FINDING RETURNED.

NO REASON FOR SUICIDE.”

By Telegraph —Press Association —Copyright. SYDNEY, December 5.

The coroner today inquired into the circumstances attending the death of Miss Muriel Hare, aged 35, Dunedin, New Zealand, who was killed when she fell from a fourth story window of the Hotel Australia in Sydney on November 26.

The medical evidence revealed that Miss Hare was suffering from a “depressive neurosis,” but she gave no indication of suicidal tendencies. Mrs Adeline Beckett, of New Zealand, a sister of the deceased, said in evidence that Miss Hare had an elec-tro-medical institute in Dunedin. She must have been making between £lOOO and £l5OO a year and “was blessed with everything she could want.” There was therefore no reason for suicide.

The coroner, recording an open finding, said that he was unable to ascertain from the evidence whether it was a case of accident or suicide. There were strong suggestions that Miss Hare took her own life, yet .there seemed to be no reason for such an act. “I find it difficult to understand,” he said, “how a person could fall accidentally from-the roof of the Hotel Australia, which is protected by a parapet, save for one small gap where a handbag was found, and not one person saw her leap to the roadway.”