DEATH PACT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21147, 3 October 1930, Page 10

DEATH PACT.

HOW TWO BROTHERS DIED. KELI&IOUS MANIA. (From Ocr Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, September 25. An amazing story of what is believed to have been a death pact between two brothers, each of whom had been seized with a form of religious mania, was told the other day when an inquest was held into the deaths of 'James and Andrew M'Minn, bachelor farmers, whose bodies were found with gunshot wounds in the head on their farm at Georgia, a peaceful village 15 miles from Lismore, in the North Coast district of New South Wales. The brothers, who were well-known throughout the district in which they had spent the whole of their lives, were fairly well off. The farming property which they had worked bo successfully for a number of. years was their own, and each had a fairly substantial amount in the savings bank. The reason for the tragedy will probably remain a mystery for ever. They left three notes, but the one that might have thrown light on the reason for their strange action was enigmatical. It read: “We are guilty of some things, but innocent of others. Revenge is not ours, so we forgive everyone.” Another note bequeathed their property to' their nieces and nephews, and the third, the only one bearing the single signature, read; “Perfect peace to my innocent brother.” This was pinned to the bed on which Andrew was lying. When the bodies were discovered that ofjJaraes was lying face downwards on the floor. There was a rifle across the body. In the breech was an empty cartridge shell and on the floor a spent cartridge. A doctor said that it wag clear that the shots had been fired at close range, and also clear that the wounds received by Andrew could not have been self-inflicted. It was considered that Andrew received the wound while he was sitting, on the bed and was later put to bed. Death proboccurred between 10 p.m, and 12 p.m/ on Sunday night. There was no sign of a struggle. various witnesses said that the brothers were usually quite normal, though a conversation with James was bound to end with a discussion on a religious topic. In the house eight Bibles were found. Both were deeply religious, and they were always on the best of te'rms with one another and' with their neighbours. .On one occasion James went to a farm nearby and confessed that he had branded a heifer that did not belong to him. This, it seems, worried him unduly. He also said something about searching for the owner of a chain that bad been found on his property. The coroner found that James had murdered Andrew and that he afterwards committed suicide-