KILLED ON WEDDING DAY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3870, 15 May 1928, Page 33

KILLED ON WEDDING DAY.

A POIGNANT TRAGEDY. GUESTS WAIT AT CHURCH. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, April 26. Many poignant features are associated with the death last Saturday—his wedding day—off Robert L. Hollino--worth, of Sutherland, a suburb of Sv2ney. Hollingworth was 26 years of a‘ge, and his bride to be was Miss Hilda Coakes, an attractive girl of 19. The wedding was to have taken place at 4 o’clock, but it was not until 4.30 that the police were able to locate the girl’s house and inform her that Hollingworth had been cut to pieces by a train on the underground city railway. The wedding breakfast had' been set, and Miss Coakes, in wreath and veil, was awaiting a message to say that the bridegroom had left for the church. She was natuially prostrated bv the tra fr ic news. ' a Hollingworth was at Miss Coakes’ home on Friday night, and when leaving he told her that he had made arrangements to go to a friend’s house near-by at noon on Saturday to dress for the wedding. It was arranged that when Hollingworth left for the church a message should be sent to Miss Coakes. Hollingworth’s clothes were laid out ready for him and Miss Coakes, having spent the morning fitting her bridal dress, helping the bridesmaids in their preparations, and arranging the presents, was at the appointed hour awaiting the message. Some time after the appointed hour a police car arrived and conveyed the news of the tragedy to the girl’s father. At the church everything was ready and the guests had become anxious. After a suggestion that the wedding would be postponed until 7 o’clock the news was broken there also. Hollingworth’s body was found, “ terribly mutilated,” just inside one of the tunnels of the underground railway at 11.10 a.m. The driver of the train which ran over him told the police that he saw the man come out of one of the workmen’s refuges in the tunnel and move in front of the train. Receipts found in Hollingworth’s pockets were tragic evidence of the wedding that had been planned. One was for a deposit on furniture, another for the ring. “ Just how he came to be in a tunnel of the city railway remains a mystery, and there is a suggestion that he may have contemplated suicide, even though such an act would have been quite inconsistent with his behaviour. It has been revealed that some years ago Hollingworth, while riding a horse in the country, fell from the saddle, and was dragged some distance and kicked by the animal. It is stated that sometimes he felt the effects of that accident. In addition to the disappointment of having been paid off a week before his wedding day, Hollingworth is said to have been worried over a disagreement with his father concerning some property. Miss Coakes stated that when she did not receive the promised message she feared that something serious had happened. “ I had a sort of premonition that all was not well,” she added.