‘At an early hour yesterday morning the body of a returned soldier, 37143 Corporal Leslie Robert Best, was found at the foot of a fire-escape at the Columbia Hotel, Cuba Street. The deceased's skull was completely smashed, but the circumstances of his death are at present unexplained. Best, who was 38 years of age, left New Zealand with the Twenty-fifth Reinforcements, and he returned to the Dominion on December 20 last. About 2 o'clock yesterday morning he approached Sergeant Edwards, of the Central Police Station, who was on his rounds at the time, and stated that he had no money and no place to sleep. He was perfectly sober, but as he seemed in need of repose. The sergeant took him to the Taranaki Street Police Station to have a rest. Subsequently, he left the station, and nothing more was heard of him until his body was found by Harry Mann, day porter at the Columbia Private Hotel, It is thought that Best was climbing the fire-escape for the purpose of entering the hotel, and that he fell from the third story.

In conversation with Sergeant, deceased said that he had a wife and a sixteen-year-old son in Sydney. He also informed the sergeant that his parents lived at 80, George Street, Sydney.’

[Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 86, 6 January 1919, Page 6]