GRIM TRAGEDY OF THE SIM DESERT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 129, 3 June 1935, Page 7

GRIM TRAGEDY OF THE SIM DESERT.

MAN AND WOMAN DIE. Evidence of Agonising Deaths from Thirst. WISER COUNSELS IGNORED. United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright) (Received .1 p.m.) ALGIERS, June 2. Mrs. Ronald Knight, aged 26, widow of an airman who was recently killed in a crash at Agades, died of thirst in the Southern Sahara with an English travelling companion, Mr. Peyton. Mr. Peyton and Mrs. Knight, accompanied by a Frenchman, M. Huebert, left Agades on May 22 on. a motor trip to the Ell Hogger Mountains, and lost their way. The English pair rejected the wiser French counsels to await a search party, and went in search of help, hoping to reach Tamanrasset. A search party found the Frenchman in a hollow scraped in the sand under the car, where he took refuge for five days. He was almost dead from thirst. Later the searchers found Mrs. Knight's body. Her clothing was bloodstained and tattered, and her hands and thighs' covered with penknife wounds, inflicted either with the intention of committing suicide or to drink her own blood to relieve her thirst. Marks in the sand indicated that 6he had writhed in agony. The rescuers then found Mr. Peyton dead from sunstroke. His clothes were in shreds. The police have ordered the exhuma-* tion of the victims, who were buried where their remains were discovered.