Dad assumed to have been murdered had actually drunkenly passed out on his own knife

A UK dad accidentally killed himself by drunkenly passing out on a knife in his bag.Robert Brown, 57, was initially assumed to have been murdered when he was found slumped over on a blood-soaked bench on a canal footpath early Aug.1 in Northampton — with three people even being arrested and later released, according to the Northampton Chronicle and Echo.But investigators eventually realized that Brown had actually just “rolled onto a knife carried in his backpack” while in a deep, drunken sleep, according to a court hearing into his death.The single-edged, five-inch blade penetrated the bag and all three layers of Brown’s clothing and slashed his arm — leaving him to slowly bleed out as he remained asleep on the bench.Brown struggled with alcohol dependency, making him more susceptible to blood loss, experts told the hearing.Northamptonshire Police eventually dropped the murder investigation in February 2026 — six months after it was launched — announcing that the injury was “likely to have been unintentionally self-inflicted”.It was ruled an accidental death this week, with Senior Coroner Anne Pember called it a “tragic accident” Thursday as it was officially ruled to be an accidental death....