DREADFUL TRAGEDY

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 203, 22 May 1920, Page 8

DREADFUL TRAGEDY

THE OTAKI SENSATION

MAN STABS DAUGHTER THEN. KILLS HIMSELF

In yesterday's Dominion it was recorded that a message had been received in tho early hours of the morning from J'almerston -North concerning a double tragedy at .Otaki, where a man named M'Fall had stabbed his daughter and' then committed suicide. Th> news was fully corroborated yesterday, the man being Thomas MTTall, an old rc.si.dcnt of Otaki, aud his v'/ctim, his daughter Olive. Both were found, dead, tho girl stabbed in two places, and the man with his throat cut;.

M'Fall was a widower with four daughters, of whom Olivo was the sectad. Tho eldest daughter, Mrs. Wylie, was staying in the house at flu* time, with her two children. It appears that the father about 9 o'clock quarrelled with the daughter Olive, mid a heated argument took place, it is reported, over a letter which he demanded and she refused to' durrender. Ifhen a loud cry was heard from the girl: "Oh, father, you have stabbed me!" and immediately afterwards the noifo of a heavy fall. The married daug'hter hurried to the scene, and found both her father and sister on the point W death. When shortly afterwards tho local police officer, Constable Satherley, caine on thescene, ho found both father a:nd daughter dead, the daughter lying at the entrance to her bedroom and tflie father at the door of his. A butcher's knife and a razor appear to have been tho instruments of the double tragedy.