THE AUCKLAND TRAGEDY

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2060, 30 September 1880, Page 3

THE AUCKLAND TRAGEDY

[PES PBBS3 ASSOCIATION BPBCIAIi WIBE.] AUCKLAND, September 29. An inquest was held this afternoon on the body of Henry Louis Rees, before Dr. Philson. Sub-Inspector Pardy conducted the examination, and Mr Thuralow interpreted for the prisoner, who was present. After the jury had viewed the body, the following evidence -was taken :

Emma Rees, twelve years old, deposed to going out, on the return of her mother from Auckland, along the road to meet her father. She saw a black man with an axe in his hand walking along the road. She got frightened, and went back. Did not tell ler mother for fear of alarming her, as her father had not returned.

Dr. Hopper deposed that from an examination of the body, death must have been nearly instantaneous. The deceased man could not have survived more than two or three minutes. The first blow had been delivered from behind, and the others as he lay on the ground, or just as he was falling. William Rose, carpenter, deposed to Beeing prisoner passing down the New North road at 9.15 p.m. on Monday. Fred Eiingt m, aged 15, deposed that he was going home with his mother between 9.15 and 9.30, and had to pass within 200 yards of the scene of the murder. He heard two blows and two groans, a groan following each blow. They were turning into the Mount Roskill road, and the sounds came from, about the place where the body was afterwards found. They went on home. Mr Melville deposed to the capture of the prisoner. In the struggle he broke the prisoner's forearm.

Hie Coroner said that it was a great pity that it was not his skull.

The prisoner, on being asked to make a statement, said that he admitted his guilt. The reasons why he oommitted the outrages were many. In Fiji, at Biu, some Natives seduced an Island woman, wife of his friend ; some Fiji soldiers intrigued with her also. He was angry, and spoke to them, but they called him bad names, and ho brooded over it. He came to Auckland with Yir Willcott. One d»y Mr Willcott spoke angrily to him, and another day, accompanied by another white man, he corrected him and scolded him because the house work was not done. A white woman whom he did not know had told him that the Europeans would hang him to a beam. Ho brooded over this. He attacked young Wil--cott because the children were chaffing and teasing him. Tbey told him that the Maoris would come and out his hands off and put his extremities in the fire. Among other things that annoyed him, they said that he was a little man and could do nothing, and they could turn him round. He then took the axe and struck Gibson Willcott. He had nothing more to say. The iury at once returned a verdict of 41 Wilful murder," and the coroner issued a warrant authorising the police to arrest the prisoner on that charge. It has been subsequently ascertained, by comparing a lock of hair of the deceased's with the hair found on the prisoner's axe that they are precisely similar, being streaked with grey. The wound in the head of the murdered man corresponds in shape and size with the above weapon.

The funeral of the murdered man, Bees, took place this afternoon. The remains were oonveyed to tho Wesloyan Cemetery in a hearse, and Mrs Bees and her daughter followed at a distance on foot.