MURDER. RECALLED

Southland Times, Issue 19540, 2 May 1925, Page 23

MURDER. RECALLED

TRAGEDY AT WINIATA DEATH OF ONE OF THE CAPTORS. Recollections of a crime which was one of the sensations of Maori and European intercourse of fifty years ago are revived by the death, in Auckland, of Mr Francis McGovern, formerly inspector of police (says the Herald.) Mr McGovern, when a sergeant stationed at Hamilton, was one of those instrumental in bringing to justice the Maori murder, Winiata Taurangaka, after he had been for years a fugitive in the King Country —then closed against access by Europeans —with a price of £5OO upon his head. The murder took place on January 27, 1876, at Epsom, which was mainly a farming‘district. On the farm of Mr W. G. Cleghorn were employed Winiata and a young man named Edwin Packer. Winiata murdered his fellow-workman by attacking him with a bill-hook, and after concealing the body, fled to the King Country. There he was given sanctuary by the then Maori King, Tawhiao. In return he gave an assurance that the crime had been committed by another person, a half-caste. For six years the fugitive was safe under the protection of the Kingites. Then in June, 1882, Sergeant McGovern, a halfcaste named Robert Barlow, whose home was across the aukati (boundary line of civilisation), and Constable Gillies conceived a scheme for procuring the murderer’s arrest. The idea seems to have originated with Barlow, who was described in the Press of the time as a man of herculean stature and strength. Winiata, possibly lulled to a sense of security by his long sojourn in the interior, attended a Native meeting at Whatiwhatihoe, near Alexandria (now Pirongia), and Barlow met him there. The police officers provided Barlow with money with which to carry out his part of the scheme. At this time Winiata’s home was at Te Kuiti. Barlow visited him there, and bought from him a number of pigs. The bargain made was that Winiata should deliver the swine at Barlow's settlement, twenty-five miles nearer the frontier.

Winiata fell into the trap, and brought down his pigs. On the evening of June 27, 1882, when he and five friends who accompanied him, had been well primed with grog, Barlow seized him, and tied him hand and foot, and, mounting another horse, rode with him in the dead of night to Te Awamutu, where the prisoner was handed over to Constable Gillies.

Barlow’s wife and children had also to flee to Te Awamutu to escape the vengeance of "Winiata’s friends, two of whom, roused from their drunken stupor by the

prisoner’s cries, started out in pursuit of the little cavalcade, but by mistake took the road to Alexandria. Winiata was brought on to Auckland by train, and duly tried before Mr Justice Gillies, sentenced and executed. To the last he declared the actual murder had been committed by his halfcaste friend, but admitted he had been a party to it. Mr McGovern, who lived to the remarkable age of ninety-two, had had nine years’ experience in the Irish police prior to his arrival in New Zealand in 1863. Very early in his colonial career he was stationed in Hamilton, where he seftjfcd for twenty-two years. After the captiW of Winiata, Sergeant McGovern rose rapidly in the force, and attained the rank of inspector before he reached the age for retirement. In the last twenty-five years he has lived at Victoria avenue, Remuera, where his death occurred. He is survived by Mrs McGovern and one son, Mr Frank McGovern, manager of the Bank of New South Wales at Timaru.

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