ROMANCE AND TRAGEDY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18879, 29 November 1924, Page 14 (Supplement)

ROMANCE AND TRAGEDY.

AIRMAN'S TERRIBLE DEED. CONFESSION OF MURDER. "WIFE" AND CHILDREN DEAD. AN UNEXPLAINED CRIME, The Byfleefc corner of Surrey was recently startled by the news from Ottawa that Captain John Buchanan Pirie, an ex-flying officer, of Brooklands, had been arrested there, after his own surrender and confession, on a charge oi murdering his wife and two children. Pirie had described himself as the nephew of a Scotish peer. But the »£res*"* Byfleet centred not so much in .;&*^claim J in the fact that in the midst of the pleasant Surrey glades began the court, ship and* romance which came to so tragic "mw* Pirie, as the dead woman was called JaYSe daughter of Mtafflf who carried on business in Surrey; Mid, rn h °a letter found by the Ottawa.police, Pirie is alleged to have stated that he Preferred to kill her and his children StotfaJMoave them "unprotected to face the world.". Thus the tragedy is ascribed to adversity. Mystery oi the Dead Woman. But when they investigated further the police discovered that the dead woman Was not Pirie's real wife, but was a Miss Caroline Freelands, a Byfleet girl, who left England with him three years ago. It is stated that Pirie's legal wife w working for a titled family. But the police have had great difficulty in tracing the captain'a relatives. Pirie's career in Surrey began when he was an acting-captain at Brooklands in the Royal Air Force. He was then just over 30 years of age, and was a rather handsome man, with strongly marked features, who walked with a limp. It was at Brooklands that he first met Miss Freelands, whose, parents are now dead. Whether she knew that Captain Pine was already married is not certain. All that is apparent" is that, after their courtship in Byfleet, the captain and the young woman went down to Devonshire to live. Two little girls were born to them before they left England three years ago. It was then understood that they were going to take up farming in Canada.

Statement by Woman's Sister. Mrs. Dakin, a sister of the dead woman, who lives at Weybridge, stated that though the couple stayed with her before they left England she could throw little light upon Pirie's earlier life. While living together Pirie and his companion had no settled home. -They had stayed with her mother at Byfleet, at various apartments and boarding houses, and at the Hotel Russell,- London. Some months ago Mrs. Dakin had a letter from hi 3 sister, from which it appeared that the family were quite happy. Just as they had always been, they "seemed still devoted to each other.