SHOOTING FATALITY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 6 October 1936, Page 3

SHOOTING FATALITY

INQUEST AT AUCKLAND (United PreßS Association) AUCKLAND, 4th October. “At no time have I ever heard him express any intention of committing suicide,” said Harold Seaborne Smith, father of John Reginald Smith, aged 31, who was fotind with a wound over the heart at the side of the Pukekohe roacl at 3.30 yesterday morning, when giving evidence at the opening of the inquest to-day. The father 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 sound. 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 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 Runciman, where the tragedy occurred, calling at Otahuhu for benzine en route. The girl covered the body with Smith’s overcoat and drove his car back to Auckland, where she reported 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.