George Henry Rabey

George Henry Rabey was found face down in a three-foot pool of water at Booby's Bay on 11 November 1961.

He had lived about a mile away in Rowena, St Merryn.

He had collected his pay cheque from his employer on 11 November 1961 and then gone home and given it to his wife after which he had left on his bicycle and disappeared.

When he failed to return a search party was organised and his body was found soon after at Booby's Bay, a rocky beach nearly a mile away.

He had drowned in a shallow pool that was only three feet deep at its deepest part. He was found by a special constable that had been part of a 30-man search party. He said that he found George Rabey's body on the beach, stating that he had been fully clothed although noted that his cap was missing and it had still not been found.

When his body was found there were no signs of external injury to suggest that he had fallen and knocked himself out nor any suggestion to indicate that he had been involved in a struggle.

The pathologist said, 'He could have been pushed in, but I should then have expected him to struggle when he got into the water, and there was no evidence that he did so. A blackout is a possibility'.

His widow said that George Rabey had had no worries of any kind. She noted that he had been questioned by the police about a neighbouring house having been broken into, but said that that had not upset him in any way.

A police inspector said that he had been interviewed because his footprints had been found in the premises broken into, but said that he found that George Rabey had in fact been asked to go into the house by the occupant to see if the intruder had still been there. The police inspector said, 'We were satisfied that he was in there for a perfectly legitimate purpose and there was never any suspicion attachable to him'.

George Rabey had worked for his brother, a builder, who had lived in Thalassa Street in Merryn. He said that George Rabey had seemed perfectly normal when he had collected his pay cheque and took it home.

George Rabey's inquest was held in Wadebridge on Wednesday 5 December 1961. The Coroner said that there was no evidence of foul play, no history of illness and no hint of a motive for suicide and an open verdict was returned.