AN EXTRAORDINARY STORY

Taranaki Daily News, 30 April 1931, Page 7

AN EXTRAORDINARY STORY

MURDER OF INDIAN AT HAWERA. MAN WHO HAD HALLUCINATIONS. It was shortly after midday that a man, tall and thin, and with an expression of abject terror on his face, entered the office of the Napier Daily Telegraph, states tjiat journal, and startled his listeners with the announcement that he was aware of the persons responsible for the murder at Hawera at the beginning of February of Nanua Chibba, the Indian fruiterer. . On being asked to explain further regarding the latter, he declared that he not only knew that two men, whom he described as Australians, had broken into the fruiterer’s premises with the object of stealing moiiey and had killed him with a tomahawk when he disturbed them, but that the men were actually in Napier at that time and that he himself had narrowly missed meeting sudden death at their hands. According to the narrator of the story he had been with these two men some hours before the murder was committed and they had tried to persuade him to be a party to the intended theft which later developed into such a more serious crime. He had refused, however, and the two had carried on by themselves. , _ Later he had come to Napier, where he alleged that he met the two men m the street. _ . It was on a Saturday night, which the man stated was the same day that he saw the two men, that he uas picked Up in one of Napiers stieets in a more or less unconscious condition and taken to the hospital, which institution he left on the morning of the day of which he unfolded his story. Despite the fact that the man suffered no serious abrasions or injury he recounted and adhered to a story of how he was charged by a motor-car containing the two men whom he associated with the murder, and knocked unconscious, in his opinion in an effort to kill him so that he could not lay his knowledge before the authorities. Taking the matter at its face value it appeared that there was promise of sensation of no minor nature and the police <were immediately communicated with and the man conveyed to the police headquarters where a statement running to the length of six fullsea p pages was taken regarding the matter, in which the man proceeded into’ the fullest details regarding his movements and the movements of others on the day of the murderimmediate investigations were instituted and Napier and Port Ahuriri, as well as the surrounding districts were subjected to a thorough search for any trace of the two men mentioned by the informant, while at the same time inquiries were started in other places in an effort to throw light on the matter. All efforts, however, failed completely, but some explanation perhaps lies in the fact that a day or so later the man, who had been released after his statement was taken, was committed to the mental asylum at Pqrirua. Questioned regarding the matter, Detective-Sergeant Fitzgibbon, who was in charge of investigations, stated that he had no doubt whatever that the man was suffering from hallucinations. He had had several more or less similar experiences and it was a fact that there was no accounting for queer twists of the mentality which prompted such declarations as these “Wherever there is a minder one of these men will always be found, and thjs case certainly demonstrates to the public the sort of tasks which face the police when they commence to unravel a crime,” concluded Detective-Sergeant Fitzgibbon.