TRAGIC LAST NOTE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 22, 27 January 1939, Page 9

TRAGIC LAST NOTE.

WOMAN'S DEATH. SAID SHE HAD HURT CHILD. MOT BEUEVDD IT HUIBARO, (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) ROTORUA, this day. .Stating that although hie wife had left a letter in which she said that she had thrown her two-year-old adopted child out of a window, causing it serious injuries, he did not believe that she had actually done this, Matina Hemana, a Maori farmer, living on the Atiamuri Road, near' Rotorua, identified the body of his. wife, Iri Hapeta Hemana, when the inquest into her death was opened before the coroner, Mr. W. L. Richards. Mrs. Hemana was discovered on Wednesday afternoon lying in a patch of scrub near her house with her throat gashed by a razor, which was lying open beside her. She was dead when discovered. Hemana said that he last saw his wife alive at 11.30 a.m. on the morning of the tragedy. Earlier in the morning he had taken her into Rotorua, where she went to hospital to nee one of their sick children. The child was an adopted one, being the son of his wife's brother, and his wife had been exceedingly attached to it. Deceased appeared to be very depressed by the child's illness. The child had been admitted to hospital as a result, according to his wife, of it being knocked down by a door suddenly blowing to. Witness said he knew that before her death his wife had left a letter, written partly in English and party in Maori, in which she said that she had caused the injuries to the child by throwing it out of a window, but he did not believe that that was true. His wife expected to be confined shortly, and was in a despondent condition. "Her love for the boy was such that I cannot believe her statement possible," said witness. "I believe that slw made the statement owing to her condition and mental derangement." Hemana said that his wife and himself were most happy, end her onlj cause for despondency was her condition. He identified a razor produced mt his property, anil said that it had beei lying on top of a cupboard when b< left home on Wednesday morning. The inquest was adjourned sine die.