FOUR DEAD

Southland Times, Issue 25361, 13 August 1935, Page 7

FOUR DEAD

SHOOTING DRAMA BULLET STRIKES THREE PEOPLE DOMESTIC TRAGEDY (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright.) London, August 11. Four people are dead as the result of an amazing shooting drama near the village green in Shutford, Oxfordshire. A bus from Banbury drew up as the villagers were dispersing after the annual fete when Wilfred Gibbs, aged 29, a blacksmith, allegedly fired a gun at the occupants, turned the weapon upon himself and fell dead. His wife, Ellen, aged 25, her sister, Ivy Goode, aged 20, Joseph Messenger, aged 40, and William Messenger, aged 46, were wounded and sent to hospital. All have died, except William Messenger. . j. c The tragedy was due to domestic differences between the Gibbs couple. The Messenger brothers were not concerned and they were wounded by shots intended for Mrs Gibbs and possibly also for her sister. Mr and Mrs Gibbs had been married for three years and had separated recently. The closeness of the range accounted for the deadliness of Gibbs’s shooting. Mrs Gibbs and the Messenger brothers were in the line of the first , bullet, which crashed through the wife’s chest, passed through Joseph Messengers abdomen, and lodged in William Messenger’s knee.. Mrs Gibbs stood gasping: My husband’s shot me,” and then collapsed as her husband fired again, but missed her, the bullet striking Miss Goode, piercing the' side of the bus, and then passing through a cottage window. A later message states that it was dark when Gibbs ambushed himself in a cowshed and fired a service rifle at the dimly-lit omnibus. Later a constable found Gibbs shot in the head. Gibbs had won prizes for clay-pigeon shooting earlier in the day.