A TASMANIAN TRAGEDY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 15, 18 January 1901, Page 5

A TASMANIAN TRAGEDY.

A SCHOOLMASTER'S STRANGE

DEED.

Recent telegrams from Tasmania

contained brief particulars of a- terrible tragedy that was enacted at Kettering on January 5, when James Whyte, schoolmaster at Mathinna, shot his sister-in-law, Rhpda Jackson, and her brother, Sydney Jackson, and afterwards committed suicide. The following fuller account is taken from the Launceston "Daily Telegraph" of January 8: —:

I^OBA-RT, Monday.—Further details are to hand to-day in connection with the Kettering tragedy. The. deed appears to have been premeditated, as Whyte travelled from Hobart by the steamer Ronnie on Saturday, taking with him a revolver and full package of cartridges. He went into the kitchen, where Mrs Ja<ckson, Rhpda, and Ada were, and, vremarking, "Isn't Rj very wet weather," dropped into the chair. No sooner had he done so than he said to Rhoda, "I waut to speak to you." and- forthwith jumped up and Went into the front room, followed by Rhoda, Not a minute had -elapsed, Ada thinking that her sister had only just got into the room,, when a shot was fired. Rhoda screamed, a,nd tried to get away from Whyt e . out of the dooß, but he caught hej- violently by the arm and shot her again. .The bullet bored its way imfo the unfortunate girl's bosom, and she, with desperate energy, tore herself free from. Whyte, aud rushed, in a dying condition, into the room detached from the. main house. Tn the meantime, Mrs Jackson had called her husband, who was busy with ah axe in his hand cutting wood in 'the yard, and Sydney rushed past her into the house. As he did so. his Avife called out "Don't hurt him, .Tim," and Sydney replied, "I will if he has shot Rhoda." Jackson dropped the axe; and both men closed, and a fierce combat, ensued, the combatants swaying to and fro in their endeavours to throw each other. Whyte was a far more powerful man than Jackson, and he succeeded in pushing hinV into the . front room, aud throwing him on the floof. He leaned over him with the revolver, and the muzzle was within a few inches of Jackson's head when the trigger was pulled. The bullet tore its way through the deceased's neck and into his head. Mrs Jackson's little bo}', seeing his father, as he thought, fighting, ran between the men, but his mother picked him up and ran out into the back yard. While on the way Mrs Jackson heard shots, and upon investigation it was found that Whyte, had shot, himself in the mouth, the bullet going out at the top of his head. Hia body was lying alongside, that of Rhoda, and death must have. been instantaneous.

At the inquest a verdict was returned that Whyte had murdered Sydney and Rhoda Jackson and committed 'suicide w7 hile temporarily insane. The general belief is that Whyte was in love with Rhoda, and that he was very jealous of a man named Arthur Potter, who was engaged to Rhoda Jackson.