A NORMANBY SENSATION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 47, 20 February 1912, Page 5

A NORMANBY SENSATION.

WELL-KNOWN SETTLER SUICIDES

Shortly after one o’clock yesterday the police at Hawera received a telephone message saying that Mr Alexander Bannatyne Stewart, of Normanby, had shot himself and was dead. On receipt of the information, Dr. McDiarmid, at the request of the police, went, to the scene of the fatality, .and shortly afterwards Dr. Thomson was also requested to go out to Normanby,. At. ten minutes to one o’clock the telegraph messenger at Normanby went to Mr Stewart’s house with a telegraph message. Mr Stewart was then ajl right. Shortly after one o’clock Mr H. Graves informed the stationmaster (Mr A. Thomson) that Mr Stewart had shot himself dead in his own house.

Later details show that at twenty minutes past one Mr Stewart was getting ready, to have a bath, which had been, prepared for him by Mr C. Payne. At twenty minutes to two Mr H. A. Graves, who wished to take Mr Stewart to Hawera, came back to the house and asked where he (Stewart) was. Payne replied that he was somewhere inside. They then went to look for Stdwart, and found him in his pyjamas in Mrs Stewart’s room, lying on her bed, with a pistolshot through his heart. He had Mrs Stewart’s photograph in one hand, and a book inscribed to him by Mrs Stewart lying by his side. No report had been heard by anyone. Medical opinion is to the effect that death ’must have been practically instantaneous.