DOUBLE TRAGEDY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20012, 10 August 1939, Page 16

DOUBLE TRAGEDY

BROTHERS FOUND SHOT BODIES IN FARM HUT DISCHARGED GUN NEARBY POLIOK FORCE ENTRY (I'ur Press Association.) WAIMATE, this flay. A shocking double tragedy at Redcliffe, some 20 miles from Wairnate, was disclosed late yesterday afternoon by breaking open the door of a hut in which the dead bodies of two brothers were found with rifles nearby. * The brothers were George Edison Bell, aged 41 years and Harold Hume Bell, aged 34, both single. The indications were that the men had been dead since late last week. It was only through the efforts of a man desirous of discussing urgent affairs with Mr. George Bell that the tragedy was discovered. As no one could be found on the property and the hut was locked up, the police were asked to investigate. Constable Watt went out from Waimate. He broke open the hut door to find the men's bodies inside and two rifles lying near the bodies. The hut was locked from the inside. Each rifle had a discharged shell in it. The bodies were brought into the morgue later. The farm was owned by Mr. George Bell, who employed his younger brother, and financial worries cannot be a factor in the tragedy as Mr. George Bell was known to be making a success of the farm. The hut in which both men lived was very comfortably equipped with an expensive cooking stove, an up-to-date wireless and other appliances. Both brothers were very well known and well liked. They had been on the property living together for a number of years and the relations between them were most amicable. Mr. George Bell was a returned soldier, enlisting at the age of 20. He was wounded in the head and and was operated on in England for the removal of a bone pressing on the brain. To appearances, Mr. George Bell was physically and mentally a fit man, but several persons having business dealings with him consider his manner on occasions was strange.