WAIKATO TRAGEDY

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 293, 8 November 1934, Page 5

WAIKATO TRAGEDY

YOUNG FARM HAND’S STORY

HAMILTON, Nov. 6. The inquest into the deaths of the Rogers family was opened this morning before the district coroner, Mr S. L. Paterson, S.M.

David William Wyatt Shepherd, aged 19, a farm hand at Horsham Downs, said he had been working for his brother-in-law, Rogers, in the last three months. He occupied a room in the outbuilding of the farm, and at 11.30 a.m. yesterday he entered the house and had a cup of tea with his sister. Rogers was then at Williamson’s farm, a quarter of a mile away, returning some wire strainers he had borrowed. Nola, the infant, was in a perambulator and Barbara in a cot in the bedroom. His siter was well and happy. Rogers returned and had a cup of tea, and then left the house, and Mrs Rogers started washing clothes.

Witness said he went to the Williamsons, and on returning half an hour later he saw Mrs Rogers lying on the floor of the washhouse. She lmd been shot through the head. The infant Nola in the perambulator had been shot in the head, and in the bedroom witness saw Rogers lying on the floor, dead. He ran to Mr Williamson and told him, and also telephoned for the police. The pea-rifle found by Rogers’s body was owned by witness’s brother, Leonard Batt Shepherd, of Cambridge. On October 30 Rogers bought a packet of cartridges, as the rifle was used for shooting rabbits, but witness understood that no cartridges were left. “WORRIED OVER TRIFLES.” Rogers and his wife had always been happy together, and witness had never heard of any trouble between them. Leonard Shepherd and his wife visited Rogers on Sunday, and before, their arrival Rogers seemed depressed, but ho was more cheerful later. He was given to worrying over trifles, and said he could not see how the farm could pay. The farm cost £2B per afire, but no deposit was paid when Rogers purchased it last June. AVitness knew Rogers had paid the last quarterly instalment of interest, and that he had enough money to pay the next instalment when it was due.

The inquiry was adjourned 6ine die,