KILLED BY BANDITS

Taranaki Daily News, 1 December 1932, Page 7

KILLED BY BANDITS

MOTHER’S DESPERATE FIGHT.

DAUGHTERS WITNESS TRAGEDY. Mrs. C. T. Woodruff, the wife of the chief accountant of the British-American Tobacco Company, was shot dead by bandits in the principal street of Harbin last month. They then seized her two little daughters and made off with them. Pursuers, however, killed two of the bandits and rescued the girls. Mrs. Woodruff was motoring through the town, taking her children to school, when her car was stopped by several Chinese who wore uniforms resembling those of the native police. They tried to board the car. On her resisting they fired, and she fell fatally wounded. The chauffeur was also injured. Her two daughters, who were with her, are aged six and three respectively. After murdering the mother the miscreants carried off her children. They were at once pursued by two civilians, but, as the bandits fled, they fired, wounding both of them So seriously that they had to give up the chase. By this time, however, Chinese police had come up. .They fired at the fugitives, two of whom were killed. The others thereupon abandoned the children in order to make good their escape. The little girls were none the worse for their terrifying experience, but they were overwhelmed with grief at the loss of their mother. The murder of Mrs. Helen Woodruff, following the kidnapping of Mrs. Pawlay and Mr. Corkran, brought to a head the whole question of the safety of foreigners in Manchuria. The various Consular officers in Mukden are taking special measures to secure the safety of their nationals in the city and in other parts of Manchuria, and are consulting together for this purpose. Meanwhile the utmost apprehension exists in those parts of Manchuria where there are foreign, especially European, colonies, at the way in which bandits carry on their activities almost unhampered. .The position of Europeans and Americans with families in Manchuria is especially difficult, as the murder of Mrs. Woodruff and the attempt to kidnap her children shows.. The parents of Mrs. Woodruff, Mr. and Mrs. James Dunning, of Bristol, were listening-in to the wireless news bulletin with relatives at Trowbridge, with whom they are staying, when they heard the news of their daughter's death.