FAMILY TRAGEDY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23618, 30 March 1940, Page 8

FAMILY TRAGEDY

PARENTS F.OTIND SHOT SEQUEL TO A QUARREL EIGHT CHILDREN ORPHANED [from our owx correspondent] SYDNEY, March 20 Eight children, whose ages range from 18 months to 15 years were orphaned when their father shot their mother dead and then committed suicide. The tragedy followed hardship and dire poverty. Shot in the head, John Atkinson Brown, aged 49, and his wife, Myrtle Bernice," 45,- were found dead in the sparsely-furnished front room of their little homo at Minto, about. 30 miles from Sydney. Their' 18-months-old son, lan, was crying lustily in a cot at the foot of the bed on which the mother was lying dead, having apparently been shot while she slept. The man's body was slumped in a corner. A singlebarrel shotgun was on the floor. Tiie eldest child, James, 15} years, worked in the city. His mother and father had been shot some hours before he left home at 7 a.m. After knocking on their door and eating his breakfast, he left, thinking they were asleep. The baby's cries aroused an 11-year-old daughter, Gladys. She wondered why nothing was being done to pacify the child, and, unable to open the door, ran outside and peered through a window, which she broke with a broom. She saw her mother's body and ran to a neighbour, who telephoned the police. The tragedy followed a bitter quarrel through half' the night. The children heard „ bickering, but not the shots. Quarrdls between Brown and his wife had been frequent, mostly about tlieir poverty. The family reached the district about IS months ago after roaming Victoria and New South Wales in a caravan, and since then Brown had had little employment except State relief work. There was only seve'npence in the house when the police arrived. One of the £jirls said the family was destitute, with no friends or relatives in New South Wales. The children tearfully thanked the police for gifts of food and money.