DETERMINED MURDER AND SUICIDE.

Colonist, Volume XXVI, Issue 3482, 15 June 1882, Page 2 (Supplement)

DETERMINED MURDER AND SUICIDE.

: (PER PKESS ASSOCIATION TeIiEGRIMS.) I CHRISTCHURCH. June 12. A ghastly crime is reported from the timber district of Oxford, some thirty miles ! north-east of Ohristohurch. The particulars so far as known are given in one' of the evening papers as follows : —This morning 1 at about 8.15, soon after the gang of platelayers on the Oxford branch had commenced work, and whilst two men named Paeknetz and Home were placing a sleeper on the trolly, another of the gang named John Greenfield, who was standing behind, suddenly lifted the adze and said to John Home, who was helping to load the trolly, " You b , 1 will do for you," and struck biin with the adze behind the ear, the blade of the adze running across the neck, and penetrating it to a depth of 2| inches with the corner, and half severing the head from the body. The foreman of the gang, Paeknetz, said, " John, what are you doing, man ?" whereupon Greenfield rushed upon the ganger, and said, " You b , I will do for you too." Paeknetz ran away, and the murderer followed him for a considerable distance, when Paeknetz suddenly turned upon him and seized him, and in doing so received a blow which the murderer aimed at him on the side of the head, but fortunately only with the handle of the adze. Paeknetz then seized the adze, and wrenched it from him. The murderer then ran away across the field on the opposite side of the main road, and was afterwards found by Sergt. Scott lying down in a furrow, where there was only a small quantity of water. He was stretched at full length in the furrow, with his face in the water, and when turned over he was found to be quite dead. Home has lived a long time in Oxford, and during the: greater part of the time has been employed on the railway. He leaves a wife and a family of seven children. He has been a steady and careful man, and has acquired some property. Greenfield has not been long in the district, and leaves a wife and four children, the youngest of which is about six weeks old. From the position of the cut it must have been given whilst Home was ( stooping with his back towards the murderer, the blow being struck over the left shoulder, the whole width of the adze; which is an , ordinary carpenters' one, penetrating the whole width, and almost severing th head from the body. Sergt. Scott was quickly on the spot, and both the bodies were laid at the Oxford Hotel on beds "side by side by half iiast ten o'clock'. The murder took place at Starvation Hill. ..."',