MAN, WIFE, AND BOY DIE

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34120, 5 April 1976, Page 1

MAN, WIFE, AND BOY DIE

Police hold youth for questioning

The bodies of three people—a man, aged 45, his wife, aged 28, and a seven-year-old boy—were found in a house in Somerfield Street, Somerfield. last evening.

The adults had been shot. It is not known yet 11055 the child died.

The police have not yet released the names of the dead people. Formal identification will be made today, when a relative arrives from Ashburton.

The police party which discovered the bodies went to the address about 7 p.m., after a 17-year-old youth walked into the Central Police Station, and reported an incident which had occurred at the house.

A youth who was interviewed at the Central Police Station late last evening in the presence of a psychiatrist and a solicitor was arrested early this morning. He will appear in the Magistrate’s Court today on a charge of murder.

The police party at the scene, under the control of Detective Senior-Sergeant A. G. I. Rodgers, took possesion of a .22 calibre rifle, which was in a bedroom at the house.

The three-bedroom, brick house is on a back section and is about 10 years old. The body of the woman, who was in her late twenties, was found in the bathroom, the body of the man was in the kitchen, and the body of

the boy was on a bed in his bedroom.

Several shots had been fired, and cartridge cases were scattered on the floor. The man had been shot at least three times.

The shootings apparently happened either late yesterday afternoon or early in the evening.

The bodies were removed from the house at 10.30 pun. Neighbours said that the first indication of something amiss was the arrival of an extra group of police cars about 8.45 p.m. Flashing lights from the cars and froth a police photographer’s flashgun awakened children in houses nearby.

The seven-year-old boy attended Sonierfield School, but few people in the neighbourhood had met the family. who moved in to the house late last year.

The police had the area roped off last night, and there was a police guard at the gate. A post-mortem examination of the bodies will be made this morning. A neighbour who lives in

front of the property where the bodies were found said that he and his wife had been to visit a relative in hospital, and had then gone for a drive. They returned home late in the afternoon. Neither heard any shots. His wife said that about 5.30 p.m. she heard the small boy crying out, as if he was getting a hiding, and a door slam. She also heard someone cry out, but not as though in pain.

The police are seeking the assistance of two people who gave a youth a lift in a blue coloured car early last evening. The people picked up the youth on the Christchurch to Akaroa highway, just south of the Halswell Hall, between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. The youth, who was dressed in jeans and a blue woollen jersey, left a stranded white Chrysler Valiant utility vehicle at the side of the road and the people dropped him off near the corner of Lincoln Road and Hendersons Road.