A DREADFUL DEED.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10756, 30 April 1913, Page 5

A DREADFUL DEED.

THE L.ITTLEWOOD TRAGEDY

A BRAVE WOMAN

MADMAN'S SHOCKING CRIME. [Fbom Oitr Correspondent.] DUNEDIN, April 29.

The Litilewood family are described by Balclutha residents as having been wrapped up in each other, and the only conclusion that can be drawn is that sadden insanity on the husband's part precipitated the piteous tragedy. When he re-entered the bedroom on Sunday morning to find that his wife had awakened, he said " So you heard me, did you?" and he was swinging the heavy sharp gorse grubber at her as he spoke. Bewildered and stricken with horror as she was, she must have defended herself well, for only two of the terrible blows got home. One split the scalp open on top of the head and the otlier tore a long gash down the temple to the eye. Then, according to the poor woman's dazed, story, ho sprang upon her, seized her by the throat, and literally jerked bor up and down on the bed while throttling her. The horrid condition of her throat bears pitiful testimony to the maniacal fury that thrust her into merciful oblivion in a few seconds.

Deeming his horrid deed successfully accomplished, Littlewood must have rushed straight from the room with the intention of firing the house. At the door he dropped the mat-took, the steel of which was found there. He went to the back and set the house afire thorp, returning to his workroom in the front and cutting his throat with some instrument.

The right arm when the unfortunate man was found was charred to the elbow, and the charring was so bad at the right shoulder and throat that it was not possible for Dr Stenhouse to determine whether the cut had severed the artery on that side. Mrs Littlewood must have been unconscious for a considerable time, since the firo had spread from the rear to the front of the premises when she woke to the now horror threatening her and her six-year-old son. Fortunately the window of the bedroom was always open (for she could never have opened it in her weak condition), and she threw the boy out. He sustained very serious injuries to the back of his head. and. lies unconscious at the Dunedin hospital, to which he was brought by motor-car last night. Mrs Littlewood was brought to the hospital on the first express this morning. The quantity of blood which the unfortunate woman last from the ierrible wounds on her head may be gauged from the fact that when the neighbours reached her there was not an inch of whito upon her nightdress.