A TRAGEDY.

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 32, 8 February 1922, Page 7

A TRAGEDY.

A WOMSN DIES FROM WOUNDS

ALLEGED MURDER AND iAfc

TEMPTED SUICIDEi

(fit TELEGRAPH.—PRESS ASSOCIATION.)'

THAMES, This Day.

[ It was reported to the police yester- | day afternoon that a tragedy had occurred neai Pipiroa, on the Hauraki Plains. The police and a doctor proceeded to Pipiroa by launch and a Lands Department train. Near a little shack I standing back from the road they found la. man, Arthur William Page, aged I thirty-three, lying with a gaping wound in his left breast. In the cottage lay Mrs. Gladys Hutchinson, aged thirty, shockingly wounded. Her right arm was practically severed, the lower part of her face and her jaw were smashed, and she had sustained other injuries. Both parties were conscious. In reply to the police, the woman said "I was going home, and he shot me." The doctor immediately attended to both .the man and the woman. It was recognised that the woman's condition was serious. Cars were procured and the journey made to Thames, but. the ■woman was dead before reaching the hospital. Page was attended to, and it is 6tated that his injuries are not serious. , . ■ . It appears the woman was married to Thomas Hutchinson, a man of Maori descent living at Turua. She had been married fifteen years and there are three children. About five months ago the woman left her husband and went to live with Page. Apparently the woman meant to leave Page and return home. Parcels were found alongside the soenu of the tragedy. A farmer named George Bertram Wallis, living opposite the cottage wae I painting his house, and was an eye- ! witness of the tragedy. It is reported that he ran over, when Page picked iip a gun andicovered him. Wallis Tetired to the roaa and got assistance. A man brought a gun, and the two went over and found Page near the woman, who, despite her injuries, had staggered come distance, evidently towards a neighbour's house. They persuaded Page to drop his gun, took him down the road, posted guard over him and waited for the police. The woman was taken into the cottage. When the doctor had attended the woman he examined'the man..; The latter was smoking a cigarette. Later,, On the way to "town Page smoked freely and chatted to the.police. The whare is.small and poorly furnished. Bundles tied «j> indicated a shift. ' It is reported that Page secured the gun from a neighbour's house. When found it was fully loaded. Deceased recognised her husband, who arrived on the scene, and spoke to him.