WANTED FOR MURDER

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLVIII, Issue 21559, 23 January 1940, Page 5

WANTED FOR MURDER

MAORI COMMITS SUICIDE By Telegraph Pies? ROTORUA, January 22. A verdict of suicide was returned by the Coroner, Mr G. A. Brabant, to-day, at the inquest into the death of Robert Tukehou, a Maori labourer, who was concerned in the sensational incident near Te Teko on Saturday night when another Maori, Johnnie Maarka and a woman, Bessie MacManus, were allegedly the victims of an assault on the part of the deceased. Maarka was found lying dead on the road and the woman beside him partially conscious. Both had been struck about the head with the crank handle of a car. Sub-Inspector E. J. Carroll said that as a result of advice from the Whakatane police he organised a search for Tukehou on Sunday. This was carried out at the house of Tukehou’s mother at Te Ngae, Rotorua, and over the surrounding country. Believing that Tukehou might have attempted to reach Mokoia Island the police returned to Rotorua to procure a boat, but had hardly reached the station when a telephone message was received saying that Tukehou had shot himself in a gully near his mother’s home. Tukehou was found lying on his back with a discharged shotgun beside him. The mother and another Maori woman said they had seen Tukehou run from the house with the gun and then heard a shot. It appeared that the wanted man had hidden in the bush until the police departed and then dashed into the house and secured the shotgun with which he took his own life.