MAORI GIRL'S DEATH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 123, 26 May 1932, Page 14

MAORI GIRL'S DEATH.

INQUEST AT OPOTIKI. BREACH OF NATIVE CUSTOM. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) OPOTTKI, this day. The adjourned inquest into the circumstances surrounding the death at Kutarere on Saturday of Olive Mill, aged 19, was concluded in the Opotiki Courthouse yesterday by the coroner, Mr. F. J. Short. ' Teko Te Papa, the .mother or the deceased, said that Olive lived with her at Kutarere. On Sunday, May 15, the girl slept at the camp. Her first cousin, Tahi Taka, who subsequently took his life, was also there. Olive had left the camp the following Tuesday very much distressed. Witi: >ss did not see a gun and did not see a letter her daughter left behind. Sergeant Millar said he called at Waimana and found Olive Mill lying dead with a gunshot wound in the chest. Nin Te Papa handed to him a note written by deceased. The position of the body and the gun were consistent with the theory that the wound was self-inflicted. The coroner said, after hearing the evidence, that it was clear that only one conclusion could be arrived at. A grave breach of Maori custom had occurred am! evidently this preyed on the girl's mind, causing her to take her life. The finding was that she died from hemorrhage caused by a gunshot wound in the chest, self-inflicted.