MANIAC AMOK.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 260, 2 November 1928, Page 7

MANIAC AMOK.

SHOCKING TRAGEDY.

Three Murders Followed By

Suicide.

WOMEN VICTIMS

SYDNEY, November 1. A sensational shooting affair occurred this afternoon in the suburb of Rockdale. Alexander Robb entered a house in Harrow Road, occupied by the Palmer family, and fired several shots from a revolver.

Three women were struck by bullets and two kere killed outright, one being Mrs. Claude Palmer. Robb then wounded Mr. Palmer, senior, and afterwards shot himself. The third woman died later.

In addition to Robb, who was aged 40, and Mrs. Palmer, aged 30, those shot were Mrs. Edith Palmer, junior, aged 42, Mrs. Elizabeth Ashley, housekeeper, and Mr. Joseph Palmer, aged 80, who was critically injured. He is an invalid and blind. He was just able to utter something about a murder in the house.

Robb was a nephew of Mrs. Palmer. He was said to have been a religious maniac and a spiritualist. The Palmer family were known to be trying to get him out of the house. Recently Robb came to Sydney from his farm at Nimbin, Northern Rivers. The tragedy was discovered by a woman friend" of Mrs. Palmer's, who found the house in great disorder. Mrs. Edith Palmer was lying on a sofa. She was not dead and was just able to give very brief details of what had occurred.

The police were immediately summoned. They found Robb dead upstairs on a bed with a bullet wound in his chest. There were two rifles with hundreds of rounds of ammunition, also a long knife sharpened to a keen point.

The police have ascertained that the family were sitting at luncheon wheu Robb entered and shot one after another.

He then went upstairs and shot himself, manipulating the trigger of the revolver with the toe of one foot.

The survivor, Mr. Palmer, was formerly a railway employee. There are two bullets in his body. Mrs. Edith Palmer died about half an hour after her admission to hospital. 'JJpere were two bullet wounds in her chest. She was well known in musical circles ana a member of "Cheer-oh Girls," an organisation which raised a considerable sum of money for charitable purposes. Mrs.' Ashley had been with the Palmer family for many years.