I’d heard stories about a man who had met his end in the Historic Petone prison. It sounded bizarre and at the time I didn’t think much more about it. Doing research for another story I came across an interesting article which brought up memories about this story so of course I had to follow up and look into it.
The man's name was Stanley Murphy. He was born in England in 1905 and had been living in New Zealand for the past three years. He worked as a labourer at the Porcelain works in Petone.
In May 1926 he was charged in court for assault. Stanley got into what the papers called a ‘scuffle’ with another man. It would appear that the two men had been trying to keep company (date) the same young woman. It sounded like the two men already had a strong dislike towards each other with the other man apparently ‘slinging off’ at Stanley over the previous two years.
On a Saturday night a few months later at 4:50pm on September 11th 1926 Stanley was arrested in Jackson Street Petone. He was locked up for drunkenness and placed in cell #1 At about 6:25pm a constable was checking on the cells. Stanley was standing in his cell by the door and asked the constable if he could get out at 7pm but he was then told he would be allowed out at about 9pm
At 6:50pm only two hours after being locked up another constable was checking the cells and quickly saw that Stanley had somehow managed to get his head through the observation hole in the door. The observation hole (one in each cell door) was roughly 8 inches in diameter and 4 meters 11 inches from the bottom of the door.
The constable quickly tried to push his head back through the observation hole but failed as his head was so tightly wedged. The constable opened up and entered the cell to find Stanley hanging with his feet dangling a few inches from the ground. Another constable quickly lifted Stanley into a horizontal position and they managed to get his head out of the observation hole and place him on the floor of the cell where artificial respiration was applied until a doctor arrived.
The doctor arrived three minutes after 7pm and did a quick examination of Stanley only to pronounce him dead and dead for some time. He noted a mark on Stanley's chin and discolouration on his chest. He said that Stanley's condition was consistent with him being dead from suffocation. The marks and discolouration on his chest were caused from suffocation and him rubbing up against the cell door where his body was hanging. So it sounds to me like he was alive and struggled (maybe not for long) after he put his head through the hole and got stuck.
It appeared that Stanley had been standing on an overturned bucket that had been provided and the bucket had tipped away accidentally or been kicked away. It had been lying two feet away on the floor from the cell door.
They also found on the floor outside his cell door two of his false teeth (one of which was gold) and a bit of his dental plate. Whether these came out while he was struggling or after he passed away was unclear.
The post mortem examination concluded that the cause of death was from a dislocated neck accidentally caused by getting his head jammed in the observation hole in the door of the police watch house and becoming suspended while in that position. No blame was attached to the police.
He was buried at Taita Cemetery in Lower Hutt. He is buried with a relative, Sarah Ann Murphy (possibly his mother) who passed away a few years later.
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