EVIDENCE AT INQUEST.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 264, 6 October 1936, Page 2

EVIDENCE AT INQUEST.

NORTHERN TRAGEDY.

Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Oct.. 5. “At no time have I ever heard him express any intention of committing suicide,” said Harold Seaborne Smith, the father of John Reginald Smith, aged 31, who was found with a gaping wound over the heart beside the Pukekohe Hoad at 3.30 yesterday morning, when giving evidence at the opening of the inquest to-day. The fatner said he had seen his son at 10 o’clock on Saturday morning. He was then in his usual spirits. As far as he knew his son’s financial affairs were 60und. He was a. married man with three children, the eldest eight years of age. Since early yesterday morning detectives have been actively investigating the case. It has been learnt that, after meeting a 19-year-old girl at about 11 o’clock on Saturday night, Smith called at his own home about midnight and collected a shotgun. He then drove with the girl almost 30 miles to ltunciman, where the tragedy occurred, calling at Otahuhu for benzine en route. The girl covered the bodv with Smith’s overcoat, drove his car back to Auckland, and reported the matter to the Newmarket police station. Meanwhile the body had been found by a Runciman farmer, Alexander Macpherson, who was returning from a dance. He telephoned the police, and within an hour a police patrol car, with detectives and the girl, was on the scene.