FOUND DEAD

Southland Times, Issue 20396, 27 January 1928, Page 8

FOUND DEAD

A DOUBLE TRAGEDY MURDER AND SUICIDE INDICATED GRIM DISCOVERY OF HUSBAND AND WIFE (Per United Press Association.) Auckland, January 26. What appears to be a murder and suicide occurred at 12 Raymond Road, Point Chevalier, this morning, when a labourer namer Peter Closs and his wife were found dead. The wife’s body was in the bedroom and the husband’s at the door. A single barrel gun had been used. Both bodies had the heads blown off. The house, a modern bungalow, was comfortably though not expensively furnished. The couple appeared to be in fair circumstances and tradespeople say that they always paid their way. The clean but untidy interior of the house presented the appearance of having been left unswept for at least a couple of days. A gramophone was open in the sitting room and there were records lying about. Music littered the top of the piano. Mr Closs was last seen alive yesterday afternoon. He called at the grocery store of Mrs Walker and obtained a bottle of bovril. His manner was peculiar, and Mrs Walker was particularly struck by the fact that he did not wait for a docket. Only the previous day he had called at the store to pay the family grocery bill, and on that occasion also he had made a similar purchase. “I thought he seemed very quiet yesterday,” said Mrs Walker. “He walked in with a vacant look about him and simply said, ‘Give me a bottle of bovril.’ He took it and walked out again. I said, ‘Won’t you take a docket ?’ but he had gone almost before I had got the words out of my the mouth.” In common with the majority of people living in the neighbourhood, Mrs Walker knew little or nothing about Mr Closs, but she was on friendly terms with Mrs Closs, who pften told her little domestic details and who was in the habit of coming in every Tuesday afternoon for a chat. “She often talked about her daughter,” said Mrs Walker, “and once she said it was not the game for them now that they had a stepfather, but I never asked her about her first husband and I know nothing about him.” Mrs Walker said that Mr Closs paid the bill on Tuesday with a £5 note, all the coupled owed for now being a few sundries.