TRAGIC HAPPENING

Evening Star, Issue 20372, 2 January 1930, Page 8

TRAGIC HAPPENING

DANNEVIRKE FAMILY'S EXPERIENCE MAH DIES IH STRANGE CIRCUMSTANCES (Pbs Uitimto Press Absocutio».| DANNEVIRKE, January 2 One family in Darmevirke have cans# to remehiber the dawn of the new year, for it was ushered in for them uncier very tragic circumstances. Harold James Hay, aged about forty-five, » commercial traveller in the employ or Messrs H. F. Stevenson and Co., wholesale druggists, of Christchurch, died m the early hours of New Year’s Day following unusual circumstances. Early on New Year’s Eve he had been a visitor to the house of Mr F. T Jr* Cotter, railway, clerk, of 97 M’Phee street. A little after 9 o’clock Air and Airs Cotter, with a lady visitor from Wellington (Miss Stevens, a sister of Airs Cotter), left the house ■■to spend the evening with some neighbours aMt and Mrs A Fussell), carefully locking all the doors and windows before going out They left Hay at the front gate He said he was going to Marton, and they wished him a happy new year« Air and Airs Cotter and Miss Steven# returned .home about 3 o’clock on New Year’s morning and retired to bed. Mrs Cotter’s sister, as was apparently her custom, looked under the bed before getting in, and found Hay underneath it. She became alarmed, and told nun to leave tho house at once and that she would call 'Mrs Cotter. Hay told Miss Stevens not to call her sister or to make a disturbance. „Aliss Stevens left the bedroom and called out'to Alls Cotter,’ who, on coming out of her room, found the deceased standing in » passage near Miss Stevens’s bedroom door, and requested him to leave the house. Hay then went and sat on Alisa Stevens’s bed and took from his pocket a small bottle, and drank its contents, ialling across the bed. Air Cotter entered, and believinjg him merely to be under the influence liquor pushed him out of the front door, on to the verandah, and the family then retired, to bed. Some time later Mr Cotter’s attention was directed to moans coming from the direction of the verandah Looking through one of the front rooms he saw the .deceased lying very still Mr Cottex became alarmed, and went for the assistance of All A. T. Russell. They made an examination of the deceased, and came to the conclusion that he was dead. They then telephoned for the police A doctor was summoned and pronounced life to bo extinct.. The deceased had been in Danneyirko since December 24, and his address was given ; as No. 3 Pine Grove-road, Devonport, Auckland. He was married, with two children. The deceased apparently gained access to the house through an unlocked scullery window. Whether the F gn had any sinister motive at present has not been revealed. The deceased was said to be. on friendly terms, with Miss Stevens.