WAIKINO TRAGEDY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17178, 23 October 1923, Page 11

WAIKINO TRAGEDY.

FUNERAL OF VICTIMS. HIGGINS GIVES NO MOTIVE. Per Press Association. WAIHI. October 22. The funeral of the two victims of the Waikino schoolhouse tragedy, when two lads M’Lean (13) and Stewart 1 0) were shot dead by John C. Higgins, took place at the Waihi Cemetery yesterday afternoon. The hearse bearing the coffins was followed by several hundreds of persons, including the teachers and pupils of the Waihi and Waikino public schools. The community still is profoundly stirred by the awfulness of the man's act. Grave anxiety is still felt for the lives of Mr Robert T. Reid, the head master. Constable 11. J. Olsen and Alexander Buster. aged 13 years. Some slight improvement in the condition of the three was reported to-day, while the girl Kathleen M'Garry is out of danger. A pathetic i*»cident is reported in the case of the shooting of the lad M’Lean. The boy appealingly put out his hands to Higgins and said “You won’t shoot me, Mr Higgins. I want to go home to my mother.*' The lad was well known to Higgins, the M 'Leans and Higgins being neighbours. In the shooting of the lad Raymond Shaw the latter was in the act of climbing out. of a window when a bullet struck him on his fingers, which caused him to fall back into the schoolroom. He crawled and hid under the desks, and later when Higgins was shooting at another part of the building he made a- second and successful attempt to climb out of the window. According to Higgins’s own statement to the police it appears he had no particular resentment against, the Education Board and made no complaint against the head master or teaching staff. He said that during the past three years he had lost three or four horses and the loss he attributed to the action of settlers in the neighbourhood. He said the devil entered into him when he. shot Mr Reid, and he did not clearly know what he was doing after, but he added he was sure he did not fire at any girl. Higgins has a wife and two boys aged 76 and six years. The elder left school last Christmas and the other had not started to go to school. His wife is a small, thin woman, whom he married in Canada just before leaving that country for New Zealand. During the sixteen years they have been on their present bush holding his wife had only been in the Waikino township about half a dozen times.