PAPANUI TRAGEDY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 14 December 1927, Page 5

PAPANUI TRAGEDY.

THE CORONER’S COMMENTS. (BY TELEGRAPH—PRESS ASSOCIATION.) (CHRISTCHURCH, Dec. 13. In a letter to Detective! Sergeant Young, Foster wrote: “I’ve saved you l bit of unsavoury work, old man. There will be no need of a warrant, and von knew I was guilty, but you had ■inly a very &mall corner of the- ca.seThe more von dug, the more you would uave found. So cease fire. This job is'over, pigeon-hole the papers and thank God you didn’t have to see it through. Good luck. (Signed) W. A Foster.” In a letter to his mother, Foster said he had promised Olive he would never ’;o without taking her too. The Coroner, in commenting on tlie circumstances surrounding the Papami tragedy," said that the male deceased, Alexander Foster, as a school teacher had more than tlie ordinary, responsibility with respect to children, mid yet he evidently indecently assaulted schoolboys under ' his charge. “This shows that he was not normal.The act of killing his wife and then leaving five young children without parents shows, too, that he was not normal. So, too, does his suicide and the manner of it. On the other,hand, tlie letters written by him and the note left for the milkman show that he committed the acts after deliberation and with a. realisation of their nature and consequences. Had he been unsuccessful in his efforts towards suicide a jury, on the evidence before me, would not, have been justified, in my opinion, in judging him not guilty of murder on the ground, of insanity. One of the letters shows that- it was his intention to kill the children, but fortunately they were spared.”