MYSTERY NOT SOLVED.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 246, 17 October 1929, Page 13

MYSTERY NOT SOLVED.

HIMATANGI FIRE TRAGEDY.

OPEN VERDICT RETURNED. "MOST BAFFLING CASE." {By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) FOXTON, this day. "I am airaid that the mystery will never be cleared up," said the coroner, Mr. A. Fraser, when giving his verdict at the end oi' the Hinlatangi inquest. The coroner found that all six members of the Wright family and J. B. Westlake and S. H. Thompson came by their deaths on September 6 while living in a house at Himatangi which was totally destroyed by fire and their bodies were so burned and charred as to be unrecognisable except through medical evidence.

"Never has a case been more completely baffling, in my twenty-five years of experience as coroner, in regard to reaching a definite finding," Mr. Fraser said. "The fire made a clean sweep and there was practically no evidence except that produced by the police and medical inquiries." As far as he could judge no possible avenue of evidence had been neglected by the police in their efforts to bring light to bear on the tragedy, and in* addition the medical evidence had been full and complete. The postmortem examination by Dr. King and Dr. Wylie established beyond doubt that the eight persons living in the house perished. "The doctors say that suicide was impossible," said the coroner, referring to the gunshot hole found in one of the skulls. "It was, therefore, either an accident or a killing—whichever it was will never be known. Owing to the inaccessibility of the house and the fact that so far as is known no one had amotive for a murderous attack, an outsider can be ruled out completely. Although much' evidence has been heard regarding the financial position of Wright, and he may not have been quite normal, there is not the slightest shred of evidence to show who fired the gun. Owing to Westlake's short-sightedness it could not have been he.

"It has been established that the skull found with the hole in it was that of either Wright or Thompson. No one can say who fired the ehot, if one was fired, or whether the discharge was intentional or an accident. No one can say even whether the destruction of the house was an accident. lam afraid that the mystery will never be cleared up, and it appears that we will never hear the truth of the matter."