NOT MURDER

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20263, 4 August 1937, Page 8

NOT MURDER

STRANGE DOUBLE DEATH. SUICIDE OF A WOMAN. FATALLY INJURES PASSER-BY. United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright. (Received August 4, 3.15 p.m.) LONDON, August 3. The coroner at lngleby, Mr. Oddie, In recording a verdict of suicide in connection with the death of Mrs. Mary Warburton, drew a distinction between constructive murder and constructive manslaughter, which Is Interesting nowadays because it is not so strictly Interpreted as It was formerly, inasmuch as a motorist killing a person by driving -dangerously is usually punished for dangerous driving, without being charged with manslaughter. Mr. Oddie expressed the opinion that a verdict of murder would be improper in the present case, though an old legal doctrine had established that when a person committing felony unintentionally killed another he was guilty of constructive murder. Similarly a person committing a misdemeanour unintentionally and causing another’s death was guilty of constructive manslaughter. But since Mrs Warburton was not fully in possession of her faculties when she committed suicide she was not guilty of felonious intent., and for that reason the death of Mr. Donald Black was accidental, and a verdict was returned accordingly. Mrs. Warburton’s husband -disclosed that his wife had previously attempted suicide. . A message on July 30 stated that, having Just left the building after olaiming some letters from the Young Men’s Christian Association, Birmingham, a visitor, Mr. Donald Black, aged 30, died in hospital as a result of Mrs. Warburton, aged 65, falling on him from a window in the fourth floor of a building. The woman was taken to hospital moaning, “ Oh, the poor boy.” She succumbed to her injuries.