WIFE SHOT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 3 November 1924, Page 5

WIFE SHOT.

LABOURER’S MAD ACT. SENSATION AT OAMARU. (BY TELEGBAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION. . OAMARU, Nov. 2. A terrible domestic tragedy'occurred in Clyde Street North, Oamaru, about seven o’clock this morning/ John Holmes, a labourer, aged' 68, purchased a pea. .rifle yesterday, ostensibly for the purpose of shooting birds. Early this morning he left his room' and ivent into the room occupied by liis wife, aged 42, and discharged a bullet into her head behind the ear. He then went back to his own room, procured a razor, and severed his windpipe. ; A four-year-old boy, who was sleeping iu a cot in his mother’s room, was awakened by the report of the gun, and rushed screaming to alarm his elder brother, who was ..sleeping outside. ' - After being shot thevwoman jumped through the window and staggered to a hut at the rear of the. house, where she told her eighteen-year-old son that his father had shot her, and asked him to go for the police and a doctor. She then collapsed on the floor. The boy ran to a neighbour’s and summoned a doctor, and afterwards sent for the police. The constables could not effect an entrance through the back door, hut climbed through a window. They found Holmes lying on a pillow in the passage with, his head against the door, bleeding profusely from a terrible gash in the throat. He stated that he had shot his wife owing to certain domestic trouble, which he mentioned, and was. sorry he had not made a job of himself. " The man and the woman were both removed to the public hospital. The woman is in a serious, condition and is not expected to recover, but the man’s injuries may not prove fatal. The couple had not been living: on the best of terms lately, and Holmes was suffering from a kidney complaint and insomnia. The constables found i rifle with an empty cartridge in the room occupied by Holmes. They also found a razor in a pool of blood on De floor. The woman is Holmes’ second wife. She has a family of three hoys and two girls, the eldest hoy being aged nineteen. They had been married about twenty years. The police found a bank book in Holmes’ room, and a letter to the Public Trustee with instructions as to the disposal of his property. ;