MANSION TRAGEDY.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 11 June 1926, Page 9

MANSION TRAGEDY.

INQUEST ON SEVERAL VICTIMS. By Cable—Press Association—Copyright Reuter’s Telegrams. , (Received June 10, 9.30 p.m.) LONDON, June 10. . At Ihe inquest on six victims of the Lamanclia tragedy, near Dublin, the jury returned a verdict that the three men died from fractured skulls, caused by a person or persons unknown. There was no evidence to show how the women mot their deaths.

'(A mysterious murder was revealed on March 31, by the burning of a country mansion known as Lamancha, close to Dublin, owned by Joseph and Peter McDonnell, who occupied it with their two sisters, a servant, and a gardener. Early in the morning a workman observed the mansion ablaze. On the arrival of the brigade they found the body of the gardener in a room in the basement with large wounds in his head. Peter McDonnell was found naked in a back room with clothes spread over his dead body, and his brother Joseph was found dead in another. A room in the upper part of the mansion, which was ablaze, contained the burned bodies - of the sisters. The servant was unable to tell whether they had been attacked. The outer doors were barred. It appears that the fire started in different rooms on the ground floor and spread to the upper rooms. The McDonnells were reputed to be wealthy. The police believed that one of the brothers lost his reason, and having set the premises aiiire, attacked the other occupants.)