MURDER AND SUICIDE

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXX, Issue 301, 28 December 1935, Page 2

MURDER AND SUICIDE

MAN KILLS A WOMAN

AFTERWARDS SHOOTS HIMSELF

■ 1 (Per Press Association) | HAMILTON Last Night. A sensational tragedy occurred on Tuesday afternoon at Hamilton when a man named Wheeler shot a woman, Mrs Chippengale, dead and then turned the weapon on himself, inflicting injuries to which he later succumbed. Creeping into the sitting room where Mrs Allan Chippengale, aged 47, was sitting on a settee, Walter } George Edward Wheeler, aged 48, shot the woman in the back of the head and afterwards turned the gun ’ on himself, inflicting a severe wound | in the right temple. The gun was a 12-bore doublebarrelled shot-gun. Mrs Chippengale’s head was almost completely

blown off, and she was killed instantly. Wheeler was shockingly injured and died shortly after the arrival of the police. The pair conducted a boarding house in Herstell street, Ngaruawahia, and the only one at home at the j time of the tragedy, which was shortly after 2.15, was a young woi man, Mrs Hill, employed as a domestic at the house. She was in the i rear of the house and, hearing two shots in quick succession, rushed inI to the room and discovered the two ' bodies on the floor. She immediate- ! ly notified the police. Wheeler, who at one time was employed at the Horotui freezing works, had been off work for several months owing to an injury received at the works. He has lived in Ngaruawahia for many years. Mrs Chippengale had resided in Ngaruawahia for about eighteen months. She had an adult son staying at the house, but he was not at home at the time. There is very little to account for the tragedy. (