Islington Tribune - by ROISIN GADELRAB Published: 10 August 2007
Family anguish at suicide mystery
A FATHER-of-two who killed himself in his cousin’s home has left his family baffled about the motive, an inquest heard. Jan Buszta, 40, hanged himself by drilling a hole in the ceiling and mounting a hook, through which he fed a noose, after getting himself drunk enough to carry out the plan, St Pancras Coroner’s Court was told on Tuesday.
The builder and decorator was found dead at his cousin’s home in Hornsey Road in April last year.
Mr Buszta’s aunt Alicja Gwozbz, of Fonthill Road, Finsbury Park, told the court her nephew, who was temporarily visiting England but had left his family in Poland, left no letters or suicide notes, “absolutely nothing”.
She said: “His wife, everybody asked me why he died. I was in the dark: why did he do this and why did he do it in my daughter’s place?”
Ms Gwozbz said her nephew was supposed to help her pick up a bedside cabinet from a furniture store on the day he died.
She said she called him, adding: “He said “I’m playing, I’m playing,” then “I can’t hear you” then the phone was dead.”
When he didn’t visit her, Ms Gwozbz and her daughter went round to find him. They discovered him hanging in the kitchen.
PC David Lewis, of Islington Police, said: “There was fresh powder where the hole had been drilled and there was a drill in the kitchen. There were no notes or any drugs. The night before he spoke to his mother and there was a disagreement of some kind.”
An autopsy found Mr Buszta had consumed more than three times the legal driving limit of alcohol before he died.
Coroner Dr Andrew Reid said: “Although there were no notes or messages left to his family, I’m satisfied to be sure that Mr Buszta voluntarily and deliberately used an electric drill to insert a hook in the ceiling and from that he hung a ligature. It’s significant that a high level of ethanol was in the blood.”
Verdict: Took his own life.