YOUTH SHOT IN DARK.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19405, 13 August 1926, Page 10

YOUTH SHOT IN DARK.

PUN! MYSTERY EXPLAINED. ACCIDENT IN A SHED. TRIGGER CAUGHT ON NAIL. [by telegraph.—own correspondent.] PUKEKOHE. Thursday. The mystery connected with the shooting of the youth, Mervyn Hoe, at Puni at about one o'clock yesterday morning was cleared up this morning. Hoe admitted to his mother and also to the police that the occurrence was accidental. Hoe explained that after going out of the house for a walk after study he remembered that in the cowshed was a rifle which he had borrowed from a neighbour for rabbit shooting and which required cleaning—a duty which he had been urged by his brother to attend to. He reached up to where the rifle was hanging *nd as ho was taking it down the trigger caught on a naiL The rifle was loaded and he received the bullet in the chest. This statement was made after Detec-tive-Sergeant O'Brien, with Detective Barling and Constable Muir, had arrived from Auckland and started investigation. The lad's parents also arrived last night. The owner of the rifle came over on hearing of the accident and took the rifle home before *he police arrived. This accounted for the police not being able to find it yesterday. The rifle is a .22 calibre In explanation of the story told yesterday Hoe said he feared people might think the wound was self-inflicted as a result of overstudy, and this was the 'reason for the statement he gave at first. Hoe appears fairly comfortable to-day and is rallying from the shock of the occurrence.