TWO BODIES FOUND IN WATER TROUGH

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 42, 13 November 1936, Page 11

TWO BODIES FOUND IN WATER TROUGH

Father and Baby Daughter

VERDICT OF MURDER AND SUICIDE By Telegraph—Press Association. Invercargill, November 12. A distressing tragedy involving infanticide and suicide occurred at Otama, eastern Southkind, last night, when a young married man committed suicide by drowning himself in a stock water-trough and drowned his daughter, aged six weeks. A searching inquiry made to-day by the district coroner at Gore failed to produce any reason for the tragedy.

The victims were William Joseph Thomas Green, farm labourer, aged 28, and Muriel Gladys Green, aged six weeks, his daughter. Green was employed as a labourer on the farm of his uncle, Robert Mee, and, with his wife and child, lived at the farmhouse. He was apparently in normal spirits on Wednesday and spent the day ploughing. In the evening, after he had fed and watered the horses, he announced that he was going to bed, but some time later it was discovered that he and the child were missing. A search was organised with the co-operation of neighbours, and eventually the bodies were recovered from the water-trough about 100 yards from the house. The indications were that Green had held the child in his arms in the water, which was not more than IS inches deep.

At the inquest Agnes Isabella Naomi Green, wife of Green and mother of the child, said she could not give any reason for the tragedy. She and her husband had been hapjiy in their married life, and they had no financial troubles. She had known her husband for about two years and had given him no cause whatsoever for jealousy. Her husband had consulted a doctor concerning his health while witness was in a maternity home a few weeks ago. Witness did not ask the reason for his visit. Her husband was very fond, of the child and witness could only think that he had taken the child’s life because he could not bear to leave it. The coroner said that the tragedy was incomprehensible. From the evidence which had been given he could only return a verdict that the father had murdered the child by drowning it. in the water-trough and that he had committed suicide by drowning while in a state of mental depression.