DEATH IN ROWING BOAT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23332, 26 October 1937, Page 10

DEATH IN ROWING BOAT

MURDER AND SUICIDE MAN'S RESENTMENT (From Our Ov/n Correspondent! SYDNEY, Oct. 15. The removal of a family living in the Newcastle district to a home two miles away was the simple cause of the murder of a man and the suicide of his assailant. For 10 years Thomas George Bramble, 52, had lived with William Isaac Woodward, 58, and family at Topi Topi, a small settlement near the Wangat River, in the Myall Lakes district, about 50 miles northwest of Newcastle. The Woodwards decided to . move, and Bramble resented that his wa yof life was to be disturbed and had made certain threats, which were not taken seriously by the Woodward family. Last Friday afternoon Woodward and Bramble took some of the household goods along the Wangat River in a rowing boat. Returning from one of these trips, they gave a lift to Mrs Carnell, a neighbour, to the point at which the path to her home left the river bank. She noticed that Bramble, usually voluble, said practically nothing while she was in the boat. He was sitting in the bows with Woodward at the oars, and he stared at her in a way which struck her as unusual. He had with him a parcel wrapped in sacking—it might have been a gun. When Mrs Carnell left the boat, she watched the two men until they passed out of sight round a bend in the river. Woodward was still at the oars, and Bramble was still motionless in the bows. It is believed that the tragedy occurred only a little while later. About 24 hours later, police found BramKe’s body in the rowing boat, which had drifted into one of the banks of the 'river. The head was half shot away, and the body was lying face upwards, in a way which suggested that he had toppled backwards after firing the shot which ended his life. The search for Woodward went on with added keenness for the rest of Saturday afternoon and night. On Sunday morning Woodward’s body was found in the river. A constable noticed Woodward’s head protruding slightly above the water the hodv being held in an almost erect position by the sluggish current. Bramble had apparently shot Woodward from behind. The police believe that Woodward was standing up rowing the boat, when, without his suspecting danger, the gun was pressed against his back and discharged. The charge shattered his right lung. There were powder burns on the back of his coat.