SPECIAL NOTICE.

New Zealand Police Gazette, Volume LXVII, Issue 34, 26 August 1942, Page 693

SPECIAL NOTICE.

Murder. Wairoa. —About the 11th instant, two maiden sisters, Rosamond Jane Smyth, age seventy-one, and Annie Smyth, age sixty-three, were murdered in their home, Queen Street. Injuries to their heads were apparently inflicted by an axe, which was kept in the washhouse, and a stove-lid lifter, which was found on the kitchen hearth. The deceased lived together in a dwelling attached to the Salvation Army Hall. On the 21st instant, when the police entered the house Rosamond Jane Smyth was found lying dead on a bedroom floor, and Annie Smyth was found lying dead on a Morris chair in the kitchen. The clothing of each had been lifted up and the underclothing pulled down exposing their private parts. The post-mortem examination did not reveal any evidence of rape and there is no evidence of robbery. Rosamond Jane Smyth, who was known to have been deaf, had ordered a bag of wood on the 10th instant, and this was delivered by the dealer on the following day when he did not receive any response to his knock at the door. Annie Smyth had been seen at about 9.30 a.m. that day,'and mail delivered by the postwoman had accumulated since then.