SHOT IN STREET.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 50, 28 February 1940, Page 6

SHOT IN STREET.

WOMAN KILLED.

MAN CRITICALLY WOUNDED.

SHOCKING BONDI TRAOEOT.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) * SYDNEY, February 23

The relative calm of Sunday was shattered at Bondi by a horrible shooting. Mrs. Ethel Barrett, of Sir Thomas Mitchell Road. Bondi, had had living with her Mrs. Evelyn Grace Gabell, aged 47, whose husband is proprietor of Tattersail's Hotel, Moulamein, in the Riverina. Mrs. Gabell had decided to- move and had gone back to Mrs. Barrett's place about 3.15 p.m. to tell her that she had taken a flat at Glebe.

Mrs. Barrett was walking beeide Mrs. Gabell when a shotgun was suddenly , fired from a first floor bedroom window. The charge tore away almost the whole right eide of Mrs. Gabell's face and she fell unconscious. Mrs. Barrett went for an ambulance, calling to a neighbour. Mrs. Statsel, to look after Mrs. Gabell meantime. Mrs. Statsel, with her brother, aged 19, and her four-year-old son, saw Mrs. Gabell struggle to a sitting position and clasp her head between her hands.

"I thought she wae saying something and ran towards her," said Mrs. Statsel later. "I was almost up to her, with my brother and son close behind, when suddenly a second shot was fired. It came from right over my head and struck Mrs. Gabell on the face."

Just after the second shot was fired at Mrs. Gabell the police arrived. Thev were examining Mrs. Gabell'e body, when a third shot wae heard. Drawing their pistols, the police ran into the building from which the sound of the shot had come and forced the door of a flat on the second floor above Mrs. Barrett'*. Returning to the first floor, they found a key in the front door of Mra. Barrett's' flat. They went into the flat and then forced the door of the bedroom. There they found William Griffiths, aged 40, former licensee of the Great Western Hotel, George Street, lying acrose a bed with the lower part of his face shot away. Near the bed was a double-barrel shotgun. Griffiths was taken to hospital in a critical condition.