STRUGGLE FOR GUN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 86, 12 April 1941, Page 10

STRUGGLE FOR GUN.

SAW PARENTS' DEATH.

YOUNG GIRL'S ORDEAL

SYDNEY, April 1

A 12-year-old girl, June Gilbert, told Leetou police this week how she had struggled with her father for the shotgun with which he murdered liis wife and then committed suicide. Police were amazed at the connected story she was able to tell them, although sobbing all the tim«.

With their eight children and their few family possessions loaded into two sulkies and two earts, John Joseph Gilbert and his wife for years had wandered about the country camping from time to time wherever Gilbert could obtain work. It is said that the family's intense love for their mother kept them together despite all their privations, and at various times metnl>ors of the family refused permanent employment rather than split up. Gilbert was described as a well-built, goodlooking man aged 51; his wife was 38.

With one of her sisters, June Gilbert was going home from school at Wattle Hill, a mile from the Gilbert's camp, when her father overtook them in a sulky and gave them a lift home. June told the police that the next thing she noticed was that "daddy was very angry with mummy," but she did not know what had caused the quarrel. This was the tragic story she told of what happened then: —

"Dad took a cartridge out of his pocket; it was a shell for a shotgun. He showed it to mummy, and said, 'I'll shoot you.' Mummy was frightened, and began to cry. She ran away inside, and got her best dress. She put it on the table and began to straighten it out. She said: 'Go away from me. I'm going to get dressed and go for the police. I will give you in charge to them.'

'"Daddy went over to the wall and picked up a shotgun. He had two of them. I his was a single-barrelled one. I saw wiiat be was going to do, and I rushed at him and grabbed the gun. I called out to him: 'Oil, don't, daddy! Don t, dont!* But daddy pulled the gun away from me. and when I tried to get in front of liini lie knocked me out of the wav.

Mummy cried and tried to run away. She ran outside where there is a table w hero we eat, but daddy ran after her. He didn t say anything more, and mummy didn't say anything. She just stopped running because she knew daddy was close to her, and then daddy pulled the trigger. Mummy tell backwards against the table, and then she fell forward on her face.

'Daddy didn't say anything. He walked straight over to a'rart and took a tut of wire from the tailboard. He straightened it out slowlv and fitted it on the trigger. He put another cartridge in the gun. and then l*>nt down o\cr it with his chest on the barrel. He went ofT °" th ° a,ld the S un

1 lie girl s story was corroborated bv the"Pill V'" S a hut 30 vards from thi fir t i Y an ' P ' who ' when he ul?,, ? i*> ' " ent to his door to see "co f m and "as amazed to f "l';ert calmly walk towards the cart and shoot himself. Neighbours did heft- ln-st to comfort the distracted £hi Wren, who were taken in bv various fannlie- unt.l the authorities ,'o,ld make pioper arrangements for their na.ntenanee. The bodies of Gilbert and his wife were buried onlv a mile from the scene of the tragedy.