MAIDENHEAD TRAGEDY.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 218, 13 September 1924, Page 19

MAIDENHEAD TRAGEDY.

VERDICT OF "FELO DE SE." Brought to the Coroner's Corut on an ambulance stretcher, Mrs. Georgina Blanche Payne told her story of the sensational midnight tragedy at Maidenhead, In which she was wounded and John Brewer Hopklnson, a motor works manager, was fatally shot at her house, where he was a lodger. Giving her evidence In a hoarse whisper, Mrs. Payne 6ald that on her return home at 10.30 p.m. from a char-a-banc trip to Brighton, Hopklnson, who was a motor engineer at Acton, was ln the house and looked very wildly at her. From his appearance she did not think ho was sober. He began to quarrel and she went to ber room, locking the door as usual. She heard Hopklnson go to his room about 11.30.

Not long afterwards there was a knock on her door, and she called out, "What Is the matter?" ITopklnson's voice replied, "I want a few words with you." Witness told him to go to bed and not be foolish, and she would see him In the morning.

Ho returned to his room, but later came to the door again, banging at it three times. Just after midnight Hopklnson called out.

"If you don't open the door I will break it down." A few moments later the door burst open, and Hopklson stood ln the doorway ln his shirt.

"He came and sat on my bed and started to argue," witness continued. "I declined to have any conversation with him. lie ripped the bed-clothes off my bed and then, taking hold of my arm, flung mc out of bed.

In reply to his succeeding remark, witness said, "You will leave the house ln the morning." Hopklnson said, "We will both leave to-night." Witness tried to get into the spare room to lock herself in, but Hopklnson prevented her.

"He chased mc back to my room," the witness continued, "and stood ln the doorway. I tried to open the window, but immediately felt something in the back of my neck and fell. I didn't hear any shot. I have heard Hopklnson say bo had a revolver, but I- never saw It. When I came round I saw Hopklnson lying in the doorway bleeding from the mouth."

After evidence by a neighbour, the coroner, summing up, said that it was usually a charitable act on the part of juries to return ln coses of suicide a verdict of temporarily insane, but here was an extraordinary case of a man committing a. murderous assault on a woman, and he (the coroner) would not like to take the responsibility of saying that the man was insane at the time. There had been tongues of slander In the district ln connection with this case, but Mrs. Payne's evidence should have the effect of silencing them. The jury returned a verdict of "felo de sc."