SHOOTING FATALITY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19138, 6 October 1936, Page 13

SHOOTING FATALITY

YOUNG MAN’S DEATH GIRL AS COMPANION POLICE INVESTIGATING (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day. "At no time have I ever heard him exurtss any intention of committing suiciue," sam Harold Seaborne Smith, the father of John Reginald Smith, 31, who was found with a gaping wound over tile heart beside tlic i'uicekohe road at 3.3 U o’clock yesterday morning, when giving evidence at Die opening of the inquest to-dav.

The father said he had seen his son at 10 o’clock on Saturday morning. He was then in his usual spirits. As lar as he know, his son’s financial affairs wero sound. He was a married man with three children, the oldest being eight years old. Since early yesterday morning, detectives have been actively investigating the case. It has been learnt that after mce'ting a 19-ycar-ohl girl at about 11 o’clock on Saturday night, Smith called at his own home at about midnight and collected a shotgun. He then drove 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 and reported to the Newmarket police station. Meanwhile, the body had been found bv a Runciman farmer, Mr. Alexander Macpherson, who was returning from a dance. Ho telephoned the police, and within an hour a police patrol car with detectives and the girl was on the scene.