YOUNG WIFE’S DEATH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 13, 16 January 1932, Page 6

YOUNG WIFE’S DEATH

ACCIDENT WHILE SHOOTING. EVIDENCE AT THE INQUESTf Per Press Association. I PALMERSTON N., Nov. 15. At an inquest on the death of Mrs. Gladys Rita Gedson, aged 22, who died in hospital from a bullet wound in the stomach, Stephen Thomas Gedson, husband of deceased, gave evidence she accompanied him to shoot rabbits, using an old Winchester rifle. The stock had been broken and was bound round with string. He had two or throe unsuccessful, shots. Noticing the string binding had come undone, he remarked to his wife a short distance away that the rifle was no good. He was holding the rifle in front with both hands approaching his wife ’to show what was wrong with it, when within three yards the weapon suddenly exploded, though his finger was not near the trigger. His wife was struck by the bullet. He had no idea what made it go off. The police demonstrated how the looseness of the barrel permitting it to move, would cause the rifle to dis charge. Gedson stated that the weapon was a borrowed one. He thought it had been registered. The police said that had the weapon been seen by the arms officer in a damaged state it would have been impounded and registration refused. The coroner returned a verdict of accidental death and an order was made for the destruction of the rifle.