STRANGE STORY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 October 1943, Page 3

STRANGE STORY

OF A FRIENDLESS WOMAN REVEALED AT INQUEST (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND, October 21. A strange story of a young Auckland woman was revealed by a detective yesterday when the coroner, Mr F. K. Hunt, concluded an inquest into the death of Miss Una Elizabeth Reid, machinist, aged 21, whose body was found floating' under Prince’s Wharf on September 24. Returning a verdict of death through drowning, the coroner said there was no evidence to show whether it was suicide or accidental. Detective-Sergeant W. Fell said Miss Reid was an unusual type of young woman, apparently with no outside interests. She had no friends of either sex. Her mother had told witness that she had spoken to her daughter about leading so abnormal a life. She had acted quoerly, as though she had something to confide, the night before she died. “The only furniture in the room where the young woman slept was an old single bed with no mattress and few clothes,” said witness. “This was in keeping with the kitchen, where there was only an old table and boxes to sit on. Food was stored on the floor in one corner. The house was clean, but one of utter poverty. Miss Reid had few clothes, old and patched, and of coarse material.”