BLOODSHED IN VICTORIA.

Auckland Star, Issue 210, 3 September 1894, Page 2

BLOODSHED IN VICTORIA.

FOUR MURDERS AND A SUICIDE,

A FARMER'S MADNESS,

HE KILLS HIS CHILDREN AND A NEIGHBOUR-FINANCIAL WORRY.

Melbourne, Tuesday. Further particulars regarding the shocking crime afc Springhurst on Sunday afternoon show that George Dobson, a respectable and highly-respected farmer of the place, cut the throats of three of his children, shot dead a friend named Peter Dinsdale and cut his own throat. It eeeina that for some days prior.to the affair Dobson had been in a very deprsssed etate owing to financial difficulties, and being a man of rectitude and straightforwardness in business, the consciousness that he could note meet hi 3 liabilities preyed heavily and fatally on his mind. So strange was his manneron Sunday morning that Mrs Dobson becume tearful of him, and taking her two youngest children she went to the house of her brother-in-law, Mr Vonaro. The latter then went over to Dobson's to try and comfort the man in his trouble. On approaching the house Vonaro was surprised to find neither sight nor sound of life. A few moments later he was horrified to find in a shed the dead and bleeding bodies of Dobson's children—Kate, aged 30 George, aged 9, and Fred, aged 6—lying faces downwards, and with the throats cut. Fearing that further horrors were to be discovered Vonaro passed through into the house, where seated upon the edge of a bench and leaning forward was the corpse of Peter Dinsdale, an old friend of Dobsou's. Dinsdale had evidently come over as usual to read the paper to Dobson, when the latter shot him behind the ear. Halfparalysed with horror Vonaro set out with the Rutherglen police, who had arrived on the scene, to search for Dobson, and following a blood, trail towards a tank in the garden, they found the unfortunate man's body in thejtank, with decnpitation almoatj ' complete, 'With as little delay as possible the police placed the bodies of tho murdered ones-and the suicide sida by side in readiness for the inquest. Dobson was 35 years of age, and was a sober, quiet, industrious resident of the Springs district.