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Stanley Heal

Age: 31

Sex: male

Date: 18 Feb 1911

Place: Boreham Home Farm, Boreham, Warminster, Devon

Stanley Heal was found shot about 50 yards down the drive at his home.

He had been shot in the head.

An open verdict was returned.

Stanley Heal was a farmer from West Hale Farm in Buckland Brewer near Bideford, Devon, and had earlier been on a visit to Home Farm in Boreham, Kent to inspect a farm in the neighbourhood with a view to becoming a tenant before he got married to his fiancee who lived at West Hale Farm. He had been there for some days and when he got back to Home Farm on the Wednesday evening he retired to rest at which time he appeared to be in his usual spirits.

His brother said that Stanley Heal had told him that he was not contemplating taking the farm in Kent as it was not suitable but said that that had not troubled him.

However, at 4.30am a gunshot was heard outside his house and his fiancee said that she then went out to find Stanley Heal but found that he was missing. She said that she then went downstairs and that when she opened the door she heard some groans a short distance away and some muffled voices. She then went out with a lighted candle and in the darkness saw Stanley Heal with his head shattered and a gun resting across his body. She said that she then went back to the house and then got the police.

She said that they had had no quarrel.

When a policeman arrived at about 5am he said that he found Stanley Heal about 50 yards from the house on the drive dressed in his breaches and boots but without a coat or waistcoat, and lying flat on his back with his arms extended and his head blown to pieces.

He said that he found a mark on the ground where the butt of the gun had struck on the recoil.

The doctor said that Stanley Heal's face was completely blown away and that he was absolutely unrecognisable.

At the inquest the Coroner asked his wife about the muffled voices that she said she had heard and she said, 'No, I know it was his groans I heard. The distance made it sound like voices'.

When the Coroner summed up he said that there was no evidence pointing to any reason why Stanley Heal should take his own life and said that if the jury thought it probable that he had heard someone outside and had gone out with his gun and stumbled in the dark that they should return an open verdict which they did.


*map pointers are rough estimates based on known location details as per Place field above.

see www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk

see Wiltshire Times and Trowbridge Advertiser - Saturday 18 February 1911

see North Devon Journal - Thursday 16 February 1911

see Exeter and Plymouth Gazette - Saturday 11 February 1911

see Somerset Standard - Friday 17 February 1911