TRAGIC END TO DISPUTE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3774, 13 July 1926, Page 50

TRAGIC END TO DISPUTE.

SON’S ACTION AGAINST FATHER. AUCKLAND. July 10. One of the leading figures in what has become known as tho Thatcher case died yesterday, one day after his solicitors had filed a defence in an action against him by his son, to have been heard in the Supreme Court. The son. Percival E. Thatcher, recently figured in a case in the Magistrate’s Court in which his stepmother claimed £Bl 5a 6d for board. The father (deceased), the son, and the stepmother had been living in the house on the estate, which was half-owned by tho son. In evidence in the case the son said that he had received only £336 from the estate, while Ills father had received f6OOO or £7OOO. The action In the Supreme Court was to have involved allegations by the son that his father had not accounted for certain moneys coming from the estate. To-day Mr Poynton, S.M., inquired into the circumstances of the death of the father, Thomas Clifton Thntcher. Dr Murray, who made the post mortem, said that, in his opinion, death was due to syncope, following on a fatty heart. There was no external evidence of any poison having been taken. Witness had secured the organs for analysis. The inquiry was adjourned pending this analysis.