MURDERED BABIES

Greymouth Evening Star, 5 March 1926, Page 4

MURDERED BABIES

■ . - ■ .-1 ■ ' - — DETAILS OE TRAGEDY. (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, March 4. A terrible tragedy occurred at Otau Settlement, between seven and eight o’clock this morning. Septimus Page, living with his wife and children in a four-roomed house, killed his two infant children, a boy and a girl (twins), aged three months. The children had been left in charge of Miss Finn, aged about who had been helping Mrs Page in her household duties. Miss Finn was present when the father committed the terrible act. She rushed across a paddock to the house of Mr James Calhoun, a returned soldier, living 500 yards away, and told him what had happened. Mr Calhoun immediately informed Mr R. Quinn, another soldier farmer nearby. Constable Holland, of Papakura, was communicated with. Messrs Quinn and Calhoun went to the house, where they found the two children with their throats cut. The father, who had slashed his own throat with a razor, was lying on the floor in a pool of blood. "A doctor was summoned from Papakura and he attended Page. Though weaTfTrom loss of blood, Page was able to get up and walk about and wash himselfNurse Brodie said to him, “Why did you do'Th'is terrible thing?” Page replied: “I don’t know.” He said he had been feeling unwell* for a long time. He had pßns in Ins head. It is stated that at one time Page suffered from fits'. Lately he complained of feeling queer. The constable took Page to Auckland Hospital in a motor car. He was looking very ill. Page is well respected in the district. He is said to have been passionately fond of his two children and devoted to has wife, having been an ideal husband and a hard-working man of abstemious habits. Before being - taken to the hospital, Page wrote a confession, which was taken by the constable.