Foot Constable
Walter John WISSELL
YEAR OF DEATH
1919
JURISDICTION
South Australia
DETAILS OF DEATH
Wissell died of pneumonia and heart failure after he suffered a serious injury in the arrest of a drunken man at Kadina. He had approached William Dibballs a 39-year-old labourer whose behaviour in Graves St had become somewhat raucous on a Saturday evening in February 1919. The patient police officer reasoned with Dibballs whom he asked to behave and head for home. But the troublemaker rather than co-operate struck Wissell with a forceful punch to the face. Each man then struggled to overpower the other until Wissell was able to bring Dibballs under control and arrest him. In the Kadina Court on the following Monday after confinement to a police cell Dibballs pleaded guilty to charges of drunkenness and assault.
