GUNS FOUND

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 288, 2 November 1933, Page 9

GUNS FOUND

HIDDEN IN SWAMP

RUAWARO DEVELOPMENT. HUNTLY, Oct. 31. The finding of two guns, hidden in a swamp about a mile from the Lakev farmhouse, has intensified the search for the missing man, Mr Samuel Pender Lakey, and the police are now hopeful that the new development will lead to a. solution of a baffling mystery. One gun, a double-barrelled shotgun, is believed to have been Mr Lakey’s; the ownership of the other, a pea-rifle, is unknown.

With fine weather yesterday, after a Sunday of incessant rain and wind, the search was continued. Immediately the gun was found in the swamp the police bega-n an intensive search there, with spades and rakes. The work went on until dark. It was resumed soon after daylight this morning. This area was searched on previous occasions, when the police found diffi-

culty in penetrating any distance from the marshy shore into the thick belt of reeds, which extends for a considerable distance in places before the open water is reached. Search of the shore line for tracks or marks of any kind has been a feature of the investigation. ■ The thick scrub on the low land close j to the lake borders has also been very 1 carefully combed. Those who have visited the locality have been impressed with its loneliness., The farmhouses are few and scattered, and in the district thousands of acres . are still under scrub. MRS LAKEY’S DEATH. The result of the post-mortem examination carried out by Dr. Walter Gilmour, pathologist at the Auckland Hospital, assisted by two other doctors, on the body of Mrs Lakey, is still being kept a close secret and will only be divulged at the inquest. However, ! there are grounds for believing that Mrs Lakey’s death was caused by suffocation when her face was immersed in the duck pond, while unconscious, and that her chin was heavily bruised, either from a fall or a blow.—-Auckland Star correspondent.