DREADFUL TRAGEDY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXV, Issue 11785, 23 September 1913, Page 5

DREADFUL TRAGEDY.

HUSBAND'S FIT OF MADNESS.

FAMILY ATTACKED WITH AN AXE. Press Association—Electric Telegraph —Copyright SYDNEY, Monday. A dreadful tragedy has occurred at' ' Crow's Nest, a suburb of Sydney. The son of Mr Mackay Woodruff, a wellknown city insurance adjuster, was awakened from sleep by a stunning blow on the head, and found his father standing 'Over his bed with an axe in his hand. After a desperate struggle tho son secured the axe, pushed his father into an adjoining room, and locked the door. Then, staggering into his mother's room, he found her in bed, unconscious, with a largo wound on her head. Making a last effort, he telephoned for a doctor. On tho arrival of the police, Woodruff J s room was found to be empty, and splashed with blood. Woodruff himself was found lying outside the window in a nude state with his throat cut, and his wrists and legs terribly gashed. He was raving wildly. All the victims were removed to the hospital in a serious condition. Woodruff spent the week-end in the mountains, returning to town last night. His crime is unaccountable, but it is supposed that he was seized with a sudden fit of madness. His wife and son were struck with the back of an axe and their skulls were fractured.