MURDER AND SUICIDE

Taranaki Daily News, 19 November 1934, Page 4

MURDER AND SUICIDE

DEATH OF MAORI COUPLE HUSBAND MENTALLY DERANGED. ATTEMPT TO PREVENT SUICIDE, , WIFE GIVES HER LIFE IN VAIN. By Telegraph—Press Association. Gisborne, Nov. 17. A shocking tragedy occurred at Tokomaru Bay at 7.45 this morning when a Maori named Barlow Karauria murdered his wife, Hane Paka Karauria, and committed suicide by cutting his throat Karauria, a labourer and waterside worker, lived with his wife and a number of relatives in a small house close to the Tokomarusay police station. Early this morning other Natives went out to plant kumeras, and on their return some of them went to the house, where they found Karauria had stabbed his wife in several places with a large butcher’s knife and then cut his throat with the same weapon. Mrs. Karauria was dead when the relatives returned, and her husband was dying. A doctor was called from Te Puia Springs, eight miles away, but Karauria died before his arrival. It is believed that Karauria had been mentally deranged for some time. There are two children. Apparently it was in attempting to prevent her husband committing suicide that Mrs. Karauria lost her life. Lena Karauria, a sister of the husband, heard a scuffle in the bedroom and found Mi's. Karauria struggling with her husband trying to prevent him cutting his throat with a razor. Lena managed to get the razor from him and then dashed outside with the two eldest children, fearing that Karauria might do them violence. She returned to the house to save the youngest child, which was lying in the cot, and saw Mrs. Karauria lying in a pool of blood. Lena called out to her brother, who lives in a whare 150 yards away, and he ran over to the house. He found the front door locked And he climbed’ through a bedroom window. He found Mrs. Karauria lying on the floor dead and Karauria with a knife sticking in his throat. He was at the last gasp and died almost immediately. Apparently when the wife tried to prevent him taking his own life, Karauria turned upon her and, picking up a sheep skinning knife, wounded her about- the right' shoulder, breast and arm, and then cut her throat.