Voices -- Christine Collins, August 16, 1932

Comments

[Jim]

One wonders how Walter would have fared in today's prison system. Would he have been paroled? Would he have gotten better care? I wonder what sort of disease acute yellow atrophy of the liver really is? Perhaps cancer, perhaps some disease he picked up in prison.

Christine must have been devastated.

[kelly conti]

i am not quite sure i understand? walter went to prison, why? at such a young age ? please explain?

[Kye]

This is a record of the death of Walter Collins Sr., Christine Collins' husband, not her son. This is almost all the information on him that I can find, does anyone know more of him? He is never mentioned but from what I can find, Walter Sr. and Christine were married until Walter Sr.'s death.

[Pav]

I enjoyed tracking down all the info about this rather interesting case. I feel sorry for that poor woman, having a husband in a prison, trying to bring up a child, and then loosing her only son in such a horrible way, followed by a death of her husband in 1933...
I think he could have died of hepatitis, jaundice. Quite likely in a prison condition...Alcoholic liver failure?

I liked the film Changeling a lot. Only think that Angelina played a strong, quite wealthy looking woman, however from Christine's letters, we know she wasn't coping very well and lost her job too...

[tls]

Jaundice is a symptom of liver failure, not a disease.

He died of liver failure, either hepatitis or alcohol induced. The terminology used on the death certificate is archaic, but means the same thing.