WAIMATE FIRE TRAGEDY.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 96, 24 April 1928, Page 11

WAIMATE FIRE TRAGEDY.

ORIGIN HOT ASCERTAINED.

VERDICT OF ACCIDENTAL DEATH.

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

WAIM ATE, Monday.

The verdict that Francis John and Freda Bertha O'Brien were accidentally burned to death, and that there was no evidence to show how the fire started, was returned at the inquest to-dav.

Ernest James O'Brien, brother of the two victims, said he awoke on Sunday morning to find the house well on fire. He got out of a window and shouted to his bnjiher, and then - went afterwards to his sister's window and warned her. She replied that she would be out in a minute, but the house collapsed that moment. His brother had a habit of reading in bed with a candle, which was usually placed on a small table beside the bed. He had no idea how the fire occurred.

Owen Allen Turner, who discovered the fire, when the house was a mass of flames, said that judging from the direction in which the fire was travelling, it originated in Francis O'Brien's room.

Constable Forsyth said Francis O'Brien's body was found lying on top of the bedclothes and appeared to have been fully clothed. His sister had evidently made an attempt to get out of the window, as her body was lying adjacent to the window.