PENRITH TR AGEDY

Southland Times, Issue 19822, 19 March 1926, Page 7

PENRITH TR AGEDY

WATSON IN STATE OF DEPRESSION. (Rec. 7.30 p.m.) Sydney, Mar. 18. Watson was a school teacher, and had suffered from depression for a considerable time. He and his daughter were to have left on the morning of the tragedy on a lengthened holiday. After the tragedy Watson said he had murdered his daughter because he was afraid she would be cast upon the world owing to his financial troubles. When she went to the telephone to ring up a carter to remove the furniture prior to departing on holiday, he struck her on the head with a hammer. Meantime, during his son’s absence securing a doctor, the father dismissed school and presumably returned to the house again and attacked the daughter. Father and daughter were deeply attached to each other. —A. & N.Z. Ada Watson, aged 22, was battered about the head with a hammer and an axe at her father’s residence at Penrith. She died in the hospital. It is stated that the girl’s assailant struck her heavily on the head with a hammer, and leaving her for dead, closed the house and went away. Later in the day the girl’s brother entered th® home, and seeing his sister lying on the floor, went for the police. While he was away the assailant returned and, smashing his way into the house with an axe, attacked the girl a second time, inflicting fatal injuries with the axe. The police arrested the girl’s father, Alfred Wateon, aged 51.