Frank Postin

Frank Postin was found stabbed to death in the reference room of a public library in Dudley.

His inquest returned a verdict od suicide whilst the balance of his mind was disturbed.

He had three stab wounds near the heart in his left breast and was found lying between bookshelves in a public library on a highly polished floor.

It was said that his death occurred silently whilst other readers were about in the library. His body was discovered by an elderly reader who informed the library assistants of his find but then left the building and whose identity was not know. The police later appealed for the elderly man to come forward.

The police initially said that they did not know whether his death was murder or suicide. When the police searched his clothing they found a nine inch dagger and a worn table knife, each with blood on them in right breast pocket.

He had had £10 in notes on him. The police also found two ordinary 3d bus tickets on his body that had been issued that morning from nearby Cradley Heath to Dudley. The tickets bore consecutive numbers which indicated that someone must have accompanied him, but it was not known who.

His identity was not initially known but he was later identified as Frank Postin who had lived in Norton Crescent, Netherton, Dudley with his wife. He was described as being well known in Dudley and had been an unsuccessful Conservative candidate at the previous municipal elections.

It was said that Frank Postin was known to have been in poor health for the previous few weeks.

The police later said that they strongly discounted any murder theories.

His inquest returned a verdict of suicide whilst the balance of his mind was disturbed after experts reconstructed his last moments.

It was heard that in the last few weeks before his death that Frank Postin had talked wildly to his wife about 'white gods and black gods' and had started going to church. It was said that on the day of his death he had shown his wife some knives in a shop window and had said, 'I'll buy one of those and do us both in'. The experts said that Frank Postin then later went to the public library in Dudley where he hid himself behind the Shakespeare bookshelf and took out the sheath knife and table knife, bared his chest and stabbed himself three times. They said that the first stroke broke the skin on his chest whilst the second was stopped by his ribs but that the third stroke went straight threw his heart. They said that he then carefully withdrew the blade and put the two knives back in his pocket and covered up his wound and then walked 34 feet towards a table in the reading room where he collapsed and died. He collapsed in front of a man there that had been reading the Amateur Gardener.

None of the library assistants remembered Frank Postin entering the library.

Frank Postin was an engineer fitter.