THE WAIKINO TRAGEDY

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 99, 24 October 1923, Page 9

THE WAIKINO TRAGEDY

WHAT WAS THE MOTIVE?

WOUNDED NOT YET OUT OF

DANGER.

(BY TELEGRAPH PRESS ASSOCIATION.)

WAIHI, 23rd October

The widely-circulated statement that resentment, caused by the receipt of a letter from the truant officer, ordering Higgins to send his son to school, was responsible for the appalling tragedy at Waikino on Friday forenoon last, when two schoolboys were shot dead and six other persons were wounded by John Christopher Higgins, appears to have arisen through the fact that the officer in question (Mr. H. S. Small) happened to be in the district at the time, and was known to have previously prosecuted ' Higgins for breaches of the school attendance regulations. _It was, however, without foundation. The truant officer had prosecuted Higgins ■ for not sending his boy to school, and at one hearing the man had in extenuation informed tho Court that his reason for not sending the boy was that he could teach him at home far better than could a school teacher. .

Asked as to whether the prosecution in question had followed a complaint from the master of the Waikino School (Mr. Robert T. Reid), the school at-' tendance officer replied in the negative. Mr. Reid, lie went on to say, had at no time made representations to the Auckland Education Board or to himself concerning the failure of Higgins to send his son to school.

The truant officer's statement thus reopens the question as to the motive .for the crime, and a solution cannot be looked for until such time as Mr. Reid's condition has sufficiently improved to admit of detailing his conversation with Higsjins prior to the shooting on Friday last, or until the prisoner makes a statement. It is, of course, still possible that the accused nursed an imaginary grievance against the schoolmaster, believing that Mr. Reid had instigated proceedings against him, but if so it is now , evident that he sought to take the life of one who had not even lodged a complaint such as he would have been justified in doing. This is made clear by Mr. Small's statement.

It may further be said that the motive for the crime is for the time being made more difficult of solution by information given to the police by Higgins during a conversation while in the Waihi lock-up. In this he admitted having had an argument with Mr. Reid before shooting him, but said he did not remember what the argument was about, also that lie told' the master that ho had been persecuted at his farm. He went on to gay to the police that, he had a feeling that he must do something, but he didn't know why he went to the school. Asked why he,had shot the children, he said: ""I must have been crazy. I am sorry for tho families upon whom I have brought grief, but I am not sorry for myself." The hospital reported to-day that there was some further improvement in the condition of Mr. Reid, Constable Olsen, and tho boy Bustard, but they are not yet out of danger.