WELLINGTON TRAGEDY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8376, 2 October 1890, Page 5

WELLINGTON TRAGEDY.

A FATHER MURDERS HIS CHILD. DRIVEN MAD BY TROUBLE. [BY TKLKGRAFH. —PRESS ASSOCIATION.] Wellington, Wednesday. A man named Dean, an expressman, for many years a cab-driver here, split his child's head open with an axo this morning. The child was three years old. Dr. Rawson htough the man on being brought to the says there is little doubt that Denn is mad, police station did not show any outward signs of mania. Hβ became involved with a Loan Company, who recently distrained on him, and since then his intellect has been giving way. He lived in Abel Smithstreet, and the nrsb that was known of the tragedy was his coming and telling his wife this morning that he had killed his little girl. It was found he had dashed her brains out with an axe. Dean was a unionist on strike. Dean has been out of work for some time owing to the strike, and his wife states that lattorly he has been talking wildly, and acting in a very peculiar manner. Dr. Raw.son had been called in to see him. He considers Dean is, without doubt, a lunatic, and not responsible for his actions. The child, which was two years and two months old, was found by the mother in an outhouse, with a severe cut on the head, from which the brains were protruding. An axe covered with blood and hair was by its side. The child was doud when the mother ran out. Nobody seems to have witnessed the murder, but from the appearance the poor child must have been deliberately held down on a block of wood with one hand and the blow delivered with the other. It does not appear that the Loan Company behaved with any harshness towards Dean, who was befriended in several ways, and given every opportunity of protecting Ins property, but did not take the trouble to do eo. Hβ has four other children. Our Wellington correspondent telegraphs : —Dean is a man not more than 30 years of age, and is well-known about torn as an industrious and attentive expressman. He has four children other than the deceased. For the last few weeks the striko has prevented him from getting employment, and ho has also lost his express through monetary difficulties thus brought about. His neighbours assert that these circumstances have troubled him greatly, and he has brooded over them continually of late, so much so that lie has scarcely stirred out of his house, and all their endeavours to rouse him out of his moping habits have been useless.