UNIVERSITY' TRAGEDY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20620, 19 July 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

UNIVERSITY' TRAGEDY.

CAMBRIDGE SHOOTING CASE. DOUBLE MURDER AND SUICIDE. STORY TOLD AT INQUEST. The inquest on the bodies of the' three men killed in tho shooting at King's Collego, Cambridge, vv:is opened at Cambridge on Juno 6, by Mr. George Wootten, the Borough Coroner. The dead men were:—Mr. A. F. R. Wollaston, aged 56, fellow and tutor of King's College; De-tective-sergeant. 11. -T. Willis, of the Cambridge Borough Police; and Douglas Newton Potts, aged 19, an undergraduate. Tho coroner said that at 1.30 on Timsday June 3, Detective-sergeant Willis went to tho rooms of Mr. Wollaston in Gibb's Buildings, King's • College. Ho knew that Potts was thorn, and he held a warrant for his arrest. Sergeant Willis in a statement lieforo his death had described how when ho presented tho warrant L'otts tool; a revolver out of his side pocket and shot him twice, and then shot Mr. Wollaston de:id, afterwards turning the revolver on himself.

Mr. Walter Potts, fathor of tho dead undergraduate, said that lie was a company managing director. Ilis son, who was reading for the Bar, was rather excitable and nervous. Ho was not very strong, and tho witness thought ho was highly strung. He thought tho truth was that his son was afraid to faco him because ho did not wish him to find out how ho had been going on. Ten Days in London.

John Fritz-Gerald Newman, an undergraduate of said that ho mot Potts in his first term and becamo very friendly with liim. 'Jo nmuso themselves they started a ja7.7. band. During the third week of tho present term Potts suggested that they should go in for a career of crime. The witness assumed that he was merely " ragging." lie told Potts that he was going away, as he had been summoned before his tutor for breaking a rule by going in a car to Mildenhall. They decided that they would go away fur a month first and then get a job.

"On Saturday, May 24," Newman went on, " we left Cambridge and went to London by motor-bicycle. We had no particular idea where wo were going to. We sold the motor-bicycle in the evening and received a cliorme for £22 10s. Wo did not sleep anywhere that night, hut sat for half an hour on the steps of St. Mart in-in-the-Fields." The Coroner: Kid yon meet the girl named Madgo Miller?— Yes. Wo bad not known her before, but a friend of mine told mo to look her up. She was kind to von ?—Yes. very.

| Newman said that the £22 10s went ; rather onicklv. and Potts sold some of his tilings. 'J'hey weie in London for 10 days. Oil 11ie last day they met some Cambridge friends, who persuaded him to return, and he persuaded Potts. Miss Ma dire .Miller, who gave an address in Shaftesbury Avenue and her ago as 25. said she met Potts and Newman for the first time between two and three o'clock in the morning of May 29. Friends of hers at Cambridge had given them her address. Potts told her they had spent t! e previous night walking about on the Embankment and had not slept for several nights. They told her that they had no money at all. She gave them some Kussian tea —she had no mill: and had not anv money either. They talked for a while, and then the two youths went to bed in the spare room. Good Advice to the Youths. On the Friday nicht witness said she no' iced <li.it the youths had guns. They said, " We are in trouble and before the police take us we have this " —referring to the guns. She said. " Don't be silly." In the course of the night she took Newman's gun out of his pocket Witness said she borrowed some money from a friend on Saturday and cooked them some dinner and took them to the pictures. They left on the Monday. Newman telling her that, he wasgoi.ig home, and she never saw them again. "Miss Miller added that she did not take these two boys very seriously. They were absolutely penniless, and her impression was that they were in debt. She advised Potts to go back to his tutor and tell him all about it. Counsel, addressing Miss Miiler: T wish on behalf of Mr. Potts to thank you verv much for all the kindness and shelter you gave to his son. After a fairly long retirement the jury returned in the ease of Potts a verdict of suicido during temporary insanity, and in the cases of Mr. Wolloston and Sergeant Willis verdicts of murder by Potts during temporary insanity.