FARM TRAGEDY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 271, 14 November 1936, Page 13

FARM TRAGEDY.

MAORI WOMAN SHOT.

WOUND SELF-INFLICTED.

EVIDENCE AT THE INQUEST. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) WHAKATANE, this day. Little new light has been thrown upon the tragedy on the Maori farm at Oliaua, Ruatoki, on Thursday, when a young married woman was. found dead with a bullet wound in her forehead. An inquest was held yesterday afternoon by Mr. G. A. Brabant, the district coroner, and the evidence went to confirm the early report that the woman (who was only 1G years old) took her life after a quarrel with her husband. Giving evidence, the husband, Paerikiriki Haruru, stated that during the afternoon his wife went over to her mothers to see their baby, and when she came back he complained about her failure to bring in the cows. She told him to go and get them himself, and a quarrel developed. After his wife had gone backwards and forwards between the shed and the house several times, he leard a shot, and rail to the house, where lie found his wife lying 011 her back on the bed with blood coming from her forehead.

His rifle was lying by her side. She had evidently put the rifle to her forehead and pulled the trigger, as there was a powder burn about the wound. The only cartridges they had were kept locked up in his wife's suitcase. He had no idea why she should take her life, except that they had been quarrelling.

Haruru Tahu, father of the husband, said he went over to his son's farm daily to help milk. Oil Thursday afternoon, as he arrived, he saw liis. son running toward the house, and when he came out he yelled that his wife had shot herself. Witness went and found the woman dead.

Constable O. S. Rice said lie was satisfied that the woman shot herself in a fit of mental depression after a quarrel with her husband. There were 110 suspicious circumstances attached to any other person.

The coroner returned a verdict that the deceased, Te Whitaua, died as the result of a rifle shot wound in the forehead,* the wound being self-inflicted.