WEDDING TRAGEDY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19601, 1 April 1927, Page 10

WEDDING TRAGEDY.

A SHOCKING CHIME. MURBfiR ftHB SUICIBE, WOMAN FATALLY -SHOT. ASSAILANT KILLS HIMSELF; BULLETS THROUGH WINDOW [BY TELEGRAPH. —PRESS ASSOCIATION.] • GISBQSNE, Thursday. At about eight o'clock to-night, wh'le Mrs. Queenie Eleanor Pettit was talking in the dining room of a friend's house in Hiririi Street, where a wedding celebration was in progress, she was shot by a man who. was outside the window, two shots being fired with an American magazine rifle. She collapsed into the arras of Dr. , McSweeney, another guest,- and died at once. One bullet, which was flat-nosed, tore the muscles of her left aim and the other entered her body under the right breast. The shocked gathering then heard a third shot and the victim's husband, rushing outside, met the murderer at the front door. The man had blood dripping -from his forehead and a gun was in his h.a.nd. lie was saying "111 fix them. I'll iihoot them." Mr. Pettit took the gun from the murderer, who ran on to the road and disappeared. The police were communicated with and searched the scene. Ten minutes later a fourth shot rang out in the locality and two men coming down tho street found the murderer with his brains blown ont and a shot gun beside him. Tho dead man was identified as George Edward Nowell, aged 25, an Englishman, who had been in the Dominion for two or three years, and had a farm at Waikohu. During the past two or three months ho had been living in a town boarding, house. Nowell was a married man with a wife and child living in Auckland. Mrs. Pettit was the wife oi a wellknown , stock agent residing at Wainui Beach, and was 35 years oi: age.