FRATRICIDE AND SUICIDE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 9340, 3 February 1892, Page 2

FRATRICIDE AND SUICIDE.

A terrible tragedy is reported to have taken place near Nathalia, Victoria, on the 26th ult. According to a Melbourne cablegram in the Hobart Mercury, a man named Robert Brown was living on a farm with his brother John, who had been loafing on him for several years. John was about to be married, and Robert desiring to get rid of him before that event, and finding it impossible to do so in any other way, placed the farm in the hands of an auctioneer for sale. John promised to leave if Robert withdrew the farm, but the latter declined to do so; The men had not spoken for some time. On the 26th, whilst Robert was sitting at breakfast, John shot him in the back. A labourer named Weatherill hearing the report and the cry of murder went into the house, when John told him he had shot his brother accidentally, and requested him to go for a doctor and a policeman, but to tell no one else. Robert indignantly declared that John had shot him purposely, and asked AVeatherill to take the gun fr.om him, but John, in au excited manner, threatened to blow out his brains if he touched the gun; and Weatherill thereupon went and alarmed the neighbours, and got a horse and went for the doctor and police. The neighbours approaching the place heard the report of two shots, and were afraid to_ enter. The doctor on arriving could not gain admittance. A policeman named Murcutt arriving broke open the door and found Johu lying across the bed with a string attached to the trigger of the gun aud tied to'his toe. He had placed the muzzle in his mouth and blown out his brains. Robert was lying on the bed where AVeatherill had placed him, shot down by a gun apparently fired from the door of the adjoining room, the shot entering the face undir tho right eye and fracturing the skull. The medical evidence at the inquest showed that either shot would have been fatal. A verdict of murder and suicide was returned.

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