Dead Woman Identified

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31543, 4 December 1967, Page 1

Dead Woman Identified

(From Our OvDn Reporter) GREYMOUTH, Dec. 3. Chief Inspector B. Kelly and Inspector R. P. Silk returned to Christchurch on Saturday after investigating the death of a woman who leapt from a police car in the Otira Gorge on Friday afternoon.

The woman was Mrs Ada Valerie Galway, aged 48, of Morpeth. Street, Rapahqe. Mrs Galway wrenched open the door of the car when it stopped to allow right of way to an oncoming car on the narrow Candy’s Bend section. In spite of the efforts of the driver-constable to hold her she plunged to her death.

Mrs Galway was in the back seat of the car with another woman as a companion. The Grey mouth Coroner (Mr R. A. Kay, J.P.) opened an inquest into Mrs Galway’s death on Saturday morning and adjourned it sine die after evidence of identification by Detective J. A. Howat, of Greymouth. Detective Howat said that with Constable E. J. Neighbours he saw the body of . Mrs Galway at the Grey Hospital mortuary. He said he had met her about 8 a.m. on Friday, at Rapahoe, in connection with inquiries into the death of her husband, Patrick John Galway, aged 54. Mr Galway was shot through the head while in bed at his home earty on Friday morning. Detective Howat sajd he last saw Mrs Galway alive at

2.40 p.m. on Friday, when afee left the Greymoutn. policestation by car for' Christchurch. Before.- concluding the inquest, the Coroner, said that in view of the circumstances of the case he would-issue an order permitting publication of the dead woman’s name. On Friday afternoon a woman was charged in the Greymouth Magistrate’s' Court with the murder--OTififY Galway and wks. remanded to Sunnyside Hospital.” Interim suppression of her name was granted by the Justices of the Peace on the application of her counsel, Mr J. D. Cadenhead.

Gisborne Shaken.—An earthquake measuring 5.5 oh' the Richter scale shook Gisborne early at 5.23 a;m. yesterday. No damage was reported.— (P.A:).