A SHOCKING TRAGEDY.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 581, 2 July 1913, Page 5

A SHOCKING TRAGEDY.

MAN AND WOMAN KILLED. MAORI WOMAN'S REVENGE. Information reached Wanganui on Saturday, of a sensational affair at Oreore in which a Maori woman is alleged to have been murdered, and. the man who killed her,' himself to have been killed. It appears that a man named Joe Graham had for some time been living with a Maori woman named Hirita Tenata. They fell out on Friday, and Graham left intendjng to go to a neighbour's place. Hirita'B aunt and sister saw him return with his swag as if going to Raetibi. Some time afterwards they heard a iho't from the direction of the house in which Graham lived, so they went over. They found Graham in the bedroom, and o i their going in he endeavoured to hide the dead body of his companion by standing between it and the intruders. Graham had shot Hirita with a pea rifle. Roused to fury at the sight, deceased's sister took up a heavy crosscut saw, and\ savagely attacked Graham, inflicting frightful injuries on his head. This was about halfpast two on Saturday afternoon. On receipt of the information of the tragedy Constable Mcßae and a doctor left Raetihi for the scene, but within ten or fifteen minutes of arrival Graham died, without being able tc give an account of the affair. At the inquest on the bodies, held on Monday, the verdict of the jury was that the deceased, Hirita Tenata, met her death by a bullet wound from a rifle fired by Joseph Graham, also adding a rider "that atfer bearing the evidence, the jury are of opinion that Graham was, at the time of committing the deed suffering from mental derangement." The deceased Graham met bis death at the hands A Peti Te Tua, by blows from a saw, adding a rider, that the jury are of opinion that her act was committed in self-defence and was perfectly jusified under tthe circumstances." \ -