SHOTGUN TRAGEDY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23004, 6 October 1936, Page 10

SHOTGUN TRAGEDY

MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES INVESTIGATIONS BY POLICE (Per United Press Association) AUCKLAND, Oct. 5. "At no time have I ever heard him express any intention of committing suicide," said Harold Seaborne Smith, the father of John Reginald Smith, aged 31, who was found with a gapin 0 wound over the heart beside the Pukekohe road at 330 a.m. yesterday When giving evidence at the inquest to-day the father said he had seen his son at 10 o'clock on Saturday morning, whe. he was in his usual spirits. So far as ne knew his son's financial affairs were sound. He Was a married man with three children, the eldest being eight years. Since early yesterday morning detectives have been actively investigating the case. It has been learnt that, after meeting a 19-year-old girl about 11 o'cloc 1 on Saturday night, Smith called at his own home about midnight and collected a shotgun. He then drov_ with the girl almost 30 miles to Runciman (where the tragedy occurred), calling at Otahuhu for benzine en route. The girl covered the body with Smith's overcoat and drove his car back to Auckland, where she reported at the Newmarket Police Station.

In the meanwhile the oody had been found b' a Runciman farmer, Alexander Macpherson, who was returning from a "dance. He telephoned the police, and within an hour a police patrol car, with detectives and the girl, was on the scene.