DREADFUL DRAMA

Northern Advocate, 21 October 1935, Page 9

DREADFUL DRAMA

MAN, WIFE AND DAUGHTER SLAIN FARM- HAND’S STATEMENT. ADELAIDE, October 16. After evidence concluded at the in* quest regarding the death of Hugh Forbes, 46, whose body, with the bodies of his wife, Evelyn Forbes, 40, and their daughter, Joyce, 16, was unearthed at the Forbes’ farm oh September 30, the Mt. Barker Coroner (Mr A. W. Paterson) committed Arthur Nelson Durrant, 22, farm labourer, of Bugle Ranges, for trial on a charge of murder. The police produced a statement, in which it was alleged- that Durrant said: “On Monday night I took the rifle up to the cowshed, and when I got up on Tuesday morning I felt funny in the head. I had not slept much that night. About 6 o’clock Tuesday morning we were about halfway through milking, when I got the rifle and shot Mr Forbes in the head. He fell over, and I fired another shot. He did not get up again. I then came down and told Mrs Forbes that I wanted her at the shed. When we got there I told her what I had done. She cried on my shoulder, and then I took her over to the chaffshed, and she said, ‘Shoot me, because I do not want to live without him,’ I shot her with the same rifle in th'e head. The j daughter Joyce, came up and wanted to know what was wrong. I 1 old her I had shot her father and mother. She asked why I had done it. I said I did not know, and then sin; started jto scream. She then started to run j away. I grabbed her and brought 1 her back to the shed, and then I shot j her. I finished milking, and then j I came and had breakfast. Then I went back to the shed and dug a hole, put the bodies in it and covered them over with straw. I then worked about the house' until dinner-time, and then I took the cream into Mt. Barker and came back home again, milked the cows, and stayed home.’’ Delcctive Gill alleged when ho and Detective-Sergeant ' Waltetswere questioning him, Durrant said that he was in love with .Joyce Forbes, but her father and mother would not, allow her to have him for a boy. Dun-ant aDo told them, witness alleged, that Forbes had forbidden him to he- alone with Joyce e>r to give her presents, ahd this had rhacle him very hitter against Pother: