Horrible Affair at Tauranga.

Woodville Examiner, Volume VIII, Issue 868, 10 February 1892, Page 3

Horrible Affair at Tauranga.

MADMAN MURDERS HIS WIFE AND FAMILY. (Per Press Association). Auckland, Feb. 9. This morning the whole of Tanranga was thrown into a state of great excitement through the news that Duncan Munro, (stepaon of Mr Jarnc3 Bodell, late Mayor of this town) had murdered his wife and four children, aged respectively nine months, three, five, and six years, the youngest being a girl and the three other boys. Later. The man Duncan Munro, the author of the tragedy at Tauranga, committed the dreadful dead while suffering from religious mania. The first discovery of the tragedy was made by a miDiman on going his rounds with milk about six o'clock in the morning. The family lived in a small four roomed cottage at the back of the Presbyterian Church, and close to the WaUtarau Beach. Just before reaching tho house the nrilkman Baw Munro on the beach in his nightshirt. Finding that no one answered lub knock, and seeing the front door open, the milkman began to suspect something •was wrong. On op?ning the door he saw the eldest boy lying on the floor just at the entrance of tho kitchen in a pool of blood, apparently dead. On going into tha kitchen he saw Mrs Munro lying on the k tchen floor, apparently dead, and battered about the hend almost beyond recognition. Further examination showed that the other three children had also been attacked, and a woful sight presented itself in the bedroom, The second boy lay apparently slaughtered in a cot. and the third boy and baby were lying battered in bed, having evidently teen sleeping with their mother. They all appear to have been attacked in bed, and were all attacked the sumo way. The tather appears to have got up before daylight and seized a flat iron by the handle and jobbed with it into the heads of his unfortunate victims. They were all struck about the head in the same woy, the point of the iron having been drivon into their heads over and over again. There were no marks on the lvijlju .it aJI, but the heads were all nocked about. The baby had Bl^gjWpsKSs-gfc, been struck unconscious ut found it was lying quite ht ),;lm '' ils i''^'l"-'l- - while sleeping. Mrs Muu o wou'd ii|p?>r to have gut at or" bed, as she had a petticoat on, and ;ad evidently rushed out of the room jifhef tp escape tho maniac or else to protect one of her infants. She was seriously mutilated, almost the whole ol tho back of her head bein'-jjobbedinand the brain protruding, pieces of her skull being picked up on the kitchen door. Hero are murks of a violent and desperate struggle having taken place, the sides of the room boing marked with blood and hair where she had fallen 01 been knocked against it in the desperate struggle for lite. Thoro is no doubt o fearful struggle took place in tho kitcher. as the madman did his desperate work The victims ure Grace Emma Munro the wife, 30 years; George, 6; Join Hugh, 5; Alexander, r>; Liiian, aget nine months. The father's ago is 33. He was bon iu Vict, ria, but has been a resident o Tanrangii since the year 1864. ' Tho two eldest boys lingered till abou Jl 'o'clock, when thoy both died noarl; It the same fcirpe, W»e baby lived till little past 1 o'clock and then expiree None of them recovered consciousness. Mrs Munro lie* in nn unconsciou state, breathing lteuvi y, but no hope whatever are held of her recovery.