DEATH PACT

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 11323, 29 September 1930, Page 3

DEATH PACT

SEVEN. Bill LES ON TA BLE.

TWO BROTHERS DIE

LISM-ORE (N.S.W.), Sept. 14. Seven Bibles were found on a table in the room adjoining that in: winch James McMinn, -W, and his brother Andrew 38, were found, shot, .on tlieir farm at Georgia, 1/ mues iron. Lismore, on Monday morning, The police Relieve that, • seized by a form of religious mania, they agreed to a death pact. The brothers were well off. They owned their farm, wire’ll- covers an area of 210 acres, and each had a healthy account .in a, Lismore bank They were deeply religious and greatly respected. The McMinn farm is three-quar-ters of a nule front the nearest homestead. When a milk-carrier noticed the absence of the usual milk cans yesterday morning he mention ed .the matter to a farmer named Long, who found the bodies. Andrew’s body was lying, covered with a blanket, on a bed. He had been shot behind the ear. James _with a bullet wound in the temple was dead on the floor. There was no sign of a struggle. A note clasped in Andrew’s ’hand washed everybody “good-bye,” and another, found in the dining-room, undated, binsigned’ by both brothers, intimated that they ■ wished all their belongings to be handed to their nephews and nieces.: .:, j

NO AVOMAN IN CASE. A suggestion, that the brothers might have agreed to the pact ove Uielf love for a womim-they nere bachelors—rWN rejected by the. police,' who state that they had nothing whatever, to do. with •- They occupied thetr minds mnn y with religion when they wore uc working the farm, and several pass ages iu the Bibles were marked. -16 was obvious that they had been reading them before they died. Sergeant Astery’s report, says that a Winchester .22 repeater nfie was olalsped in “James . McMinn .. . . hand, but [whether he fired both shots has not been established. Four farmer brothers, living in various parts of the Stale, siirviv, the pair. '