SHOT FROM DARK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23284, 1 March 1939, Page 10

SHOT FROM DARK

KOHIMABAMA INCIDENT! BULLET THROUGH WINDOW ELDERLY MAN'S ESCAPE POLICE INVESTIGATIONS Fired apparently from a .22 ca.libro rifle, a bullet burst through the glass of a window of a front .bedroom, in the home of Mr. Reuben Hiehards, 44 Kohimarama Road, Kohimarama, shortly after eight o'clock on Monday night. Passing withiin inches of Mr. Richards, who was preparing for bed, the bullet penetrated a double wall on the other side of the room, and was recovered yesterday morning from a cardboard box containing silk in an adjoining linen cupboard. Although Mr. Richards heard the shot, he did not appreciate its significance until the morning. Imagining that some intruder was exploding lireworks in the garden, he made a searrh of the property after hearing the discharge of the rifle, but :it was not unl.i?, he awoke yesterday that he noticed the neat round holes in the window and in the wall on the opposite side of the room. Light Visible Outside

Mr. Richards, who is an elderly man, is in the habit of retiring early. He stated yesterday that he was sitting oa his bed when the shot was fired. Ho was facing the curtained window, but the blind was only partly drawn and the light in the room could readily be seieu from the outside.

"I heard the 'ping 1 either of the rifle being fired or of the bullet striking the window, but I imagined there was some, skylarking going on with fi reworks," Mr. Richards stated ycsterd;iy. : "I put on my pyjamas and had a look around the garden for 20 minutes or so without seeing any disturbance, and then went to bed. I thought no more about it until this morning." Although it is believed that the riße was not fired at close range,-the-'force with which the bullet entered the roum tends to discount any theory that ifc could have been more than a few hundred yards away. After penetrating ;he window, the bullet must have passed within several inches of Mr. Richards' head before, going through a thickiies3 of plaster wall board itnd the fairly heavy wooden lining of the linen cupboard. Location of Hoase Built on .a somewhat isolated section, the house is 011 an elevated site about 103 yds. off the road. In the line of &re suggested by the path of the bullet in the bedroom, there are several points from which a rifle might have been discharged. At a loss to explain the incident, Mr. Richards said he could see no purpose in any attempt to injure him. It seemed more likely tjiat the shot svas either the result of v gross careless, less or of a malicious act of larrikinism. The police were informed of the incident, and an investigation was commenced by Constable Collins, of Kohimarama'. Subsequently, inquiries * ere undertaken by a detective.