DETERMINED MURDER AND SUICIDE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume III, Issue 261, 14 June 1882, Page 2

DETERMINED MURDER AND SUICIDE.

CHRISTCHURCH, June 12. This morning, at about 8.15, soon after the gang of platelayers of the Oxford branch had commenced work, and whilst two men, named Packnetz and Home, were placing a sleeper on a trolly, another of the gang, named John Greenfield, who was standing behind with an adze in his hand, suddenly lifted the adze and said to John Home, who was helping to load the trolly, "You b , I will do for you," and struck him with the adze behind the ear, the blade of the adze running across the neck and penetrating in to a depth of two inches with the corner, and half severing the head from the body. The foreman of the gang, Packnetz, said, " John, what are you doing, man?" Whereupon Greenfield rushed upon the ganger, and Baid, " You b , I will do for you, too." Packnetz ran away, and the murderer followed him for a considerable distance, when Packnetz suddenly turned upon him and seized him, and in doing so received a blow which the murderer aimed at him on the jiside of the head, but fortunately only ' with the handle of the adze. Packnetz then seized the adze and wrenched it from him. The murderer then ran away, but was afterwards found by Sergeant Scott lying down in a furrow at full length, with his face in the water. When turned over, he was found to be quite dead. Home has lived a long time in Oxford, and has a wife and family of seven children. Greenfield leaves a wife and four children, the youngest of which is about six weeks old. Both the bodies were laid at the Oxford Hotel, on beds side by side. The murder took place near Starvation Hill.