HAN'S HEAD BLOWN OFF.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18025, 25 February 1922, Page 8

HAN'S HEAD BLOWN OFF.

SUICIDE AT WAIHI. A GRUESOME DISCOVERT. [BY. TELEGRAPH—OWN CORRESPONDENT'] ."..' WAIHI. Frid»l. A gruesome discovery was made about 9.30 this morning by Allen Walker, telegraph messenger, when taking a telegram to the place of residence of Frederick Norris, of Smith Street, who was living in a tent. The messenger, failing to gam • admission owing to the wooden door to the tent being locked, went to a shed *' the lower end of the section, and there saw lying on the floor the headless body of Norris. The police were notified, aud •an examination showed that tho head of the deceased had been completely blown off. On forcing an entrance to the WOT Senior-Sergeant O'Grady aud Constable Keenan found a note.addressed, " Sergeant of Police " and two sealed and stamped letters, one addressed to the wife of the deceased and the other to a relative in Auckland. The contents of the note announced the intention of tho deceased to end his life by the use of gelignite, owing to domestic troubles. Accompanyir-g this was a request that the sergeant should. post the two letters, which ho would find on the table. The deceased was about 55 years of agfr and had. recently been separated from his wife. Ho leaves two children by his first wife and a very young child by his seconc wife. Since the breaking up of his homt the deceased had let his residence to Mr. Lawrence, and ho himself had been living in a tent on the same section. Norris was last seen alive on Wednes- ■ day night, when he attended a_ picture . show. Later on the same evening Mr. ■ Lawrence h«ird a loud report, which evidentlv had come from the ehed at th'. bottom of the sertion. a chain or two away from the house." He took no particular notice of it, however. - It seems probable that the deceased placed a plug, or portion of a plug, oi gelignite in his mouth.