THE OPUNAKE MURDER.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2113, 1 December 1880, Page 3

THE OPUNAKE MURDER.

[pBB PEESS ASSOCIATION SPECIAIi WIEB.] WELLINGTON, November 30. Captain Fairchild has been instructed to proceed at once to Opunake to convey Tuhi from there to New Plymouth, where he will be tried at the next sitting of the Supreme Oourt. HAWBRA, November 30. Bona and the other Maoris who gave strong evidence against Tuhi, were influenced by feeling, his crime being committed on their ground. They thought that if the prisoner wished to kill a pakeha he ought to have gone to his own district, and wero angry at him. Tuhi is the son of a Maori known as old Whari or Whara, living between here and Opunake. It is said that his father is suspected of having murdered two sawyers in 1860. Tuhi’s mother is one of the band, earnest Maori women, and the murderer inherits her good looks and grand physique. No motives for the crime have yet been assigned. OPUNAKE, November 30.

Tuhi has made the following further oonfession of the murder:—“ I saw deceased coming. I tied my horse in the flax, and went towards her. She gave me 6s 43. The threepenny piece and halfpenny referred to and paid to Coffey is correct. I caught her with my right hand, and stabbed her with my left. I dragged her to a flax bush, and stabbed her again, and seeing that she still lived I dragged her to another, and out her throat, when life became extinct.”

The following is the murderer’s letter to his friends : —“ Salutations to all who remain over there. Great is my love for you all at this time. You will not see me again. I have given myself for food for the birds of heaven. This is all. —The adieu —a song : —‘ Love cannot turn me to the house; where is the fear. We were apart in the first sunny days ; overtaken by sin, wo all part.’ This is all.” “To Towharongp.ro—Let not your mind be troubled about me. I have sinned, murdersd. On no account lot the thought return to me. Cry not at all; wish the Groat Priest is the thought for me. This is all to Tewharengaro. Come and see me and take away with you the horse. Whakapnta come by yourself, let not the others come with yon. This is all. It is finished by your son, Tuhata, and written for me by Mr Hurst* house.”