NUKUMARU TRAGEDY

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 17, 14 October 1921, Page 7

NUKUMARU TRAGEDY

EVIDENCE AT INQUEST MURDERED WOMAN’S , STRUGGLE FOR LIFE By Telegraph—Press Association. Wanganui, October 13. Tho Coroner held an inquiry to-day in connection with the recent tragedy at Nukumaru. No fresh light was thrown on tho matter. The Coroner found that Bertha M'Gorman was murdered by her husband and’ that the latter committed suicide. The M'Gorman family lived at an old accommodation house at a corner where the Nukumaru station road branches off tho main road. The tragedy was enacted about a quarter of a mile along the main road, close to the seventcen-mile post. Evidently Mrs. M'Gorman had struggled for her life, there being a cut on one hand whero she had grappled the razor blade. After killing his wife M'Gorman dragged the 'body into the watertable; then he walked across the road, sat down, and cut his own thfoat. Ho climbed a stout seven-wire fence and walked a hundred yards down a paddock to the point whero ho was found in the morning in a dying state. M'Gorman was reputed to bo a wealthy man, owning several farms. Mrs. M'Gorman was a woman .of a kindly nature, and was held in. the greatest esteem. The evidence showed that M'Gorman had been queer lately, but on the best of terms with hit wife.