MURDER AND SUICIDE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1052, 16 June 1882, Page 3

MURDER AND SUICIDE.

Christchurch, June, 12

A ghastly crime is reported from the timber district of Oxford, some 30 miles northwest of Christchurch. The particulars so far as they are known are given in one of the evening papers as follows:—This morning at about 8 15, soon after the gang of platelayers on the Oxford Brandi bad commenced work, and whilst two men named Paoknetz and Horne were placing a sleeper on the trolly, another of the gang named John Grenfell, who was standing behind with an adze in his baud, suddenly raised the adze and said to John Horne, why was helping to load the trolly, “You —-I will do for you,” and struck him with the adze 1 ehind the car, the blade of die’ adz> running across the neck and penetrating it to a depth of 2Jin.. and half severing the head from the body. The foreman of the gang, Packnetz said “John, what are T you doing, man?" whereupon Genfell rushed upon the gamer, and said, “Yon-'-, I will do for you, too.” Paoknetz ran away, and the murderer followed him for a considerable distance, when Packnetz suddenly turned upon him and seized him, and in doing so received a blow which the murderer aimed at him on the si le of the head, but fortunately only with the handle of the adze. Packnetz then seized the adze, and wrenched it fom him. The murderer then ran away across the field on the opposite side of the main road, and was afterwards found by Sergeant Scott lying down in a furrow where there was only a small quantity of water. He was stretched at full length in the furrow, with his face in the water, and when turned over he was found to be quite dead. Herne has lived a long time in Oxford, and during the greater part of the time has been employed on the railway. He has a wife and a family of seven chil dren- He has been a steady and careful man and has acquired some property Grenfell lias not been long in the district, and leaves a wife and four children, the youngest of which is about six weeks old. From the position of the cut, it must have been given while Horne was stooping at the trolly with his baok towards the murderer, the blow being given over the left.shout e-, the whole width of the adze, which is an ordinary carpenter’s one, penetrating the full width and almost sea’ering the head from the body. Sergiant Scott was quickly on the spot, and both bodies were laid at the Oxford hotel on beds side by side by half-past ten o'clock. The mur der fonk p’nce near Starvation Hill. At the inquest, one of the witnesses said a sudden change had been remarked in G-e f ll’s conduct during the last few days, which none of Ins mates could explain The v rdi t. was insanity on Grenfell’s part. Nothing else new is elicited.