MURDER AND ATTEMPTED SUICIDE AT AUCKLAND.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 179, 17 June 1864, Page 5 (Supplement)

MURDER AND ATTEMPTED SUICIDE AT AUCKLAND.

(From the Correspondent of the D. S. Cross), CAMP, QUEEN’S IIEDOUBT. June 4. The whole of the troops and the residents in this locality, who are usually so quiet, were thrown into a state of great excitement yesterday, at about half-past 1 o’clock, by the report that Mr. M’Leanhad shot himself after murdering his wife. No one could believe such a thing possible, hut, on going to the house, it was found, alas, too true. I hear that the wretched man was the whole of the morning working about the farm, and talking to several persons who were passing by the house in the most agreeable and familiar manner, even to within a quarter of an hour of the fatal catastrophe. He was then talking to Sergeant Fisher, C.T.C., about shooting some hawks that have lately been carrying off his fowls, and in a few minutes he followed his wife into the house. "What passed between them at that time will probably never be known, but the report of a gun being heard by the son William M’Lean and the daughter, wdio were not in the main building, they immediately rushed into the house, and there the sad spectacle met their view. The son wrested the weapon from his father, and threw it out of the door into the garden, when the unhappy, reckless man went into another room, and got a rifle, and made a most determined attempt at suicide by placing it on the ground with the muzzle against his throat, and by some means it did not take fatal effect, but dreadfully shattered the jaw, and mutilated his face. Doctors Hessian and Nicholson were soon on the spot, but no assistance was of any avail, for the unfortunate woman was by that time beyond human aid. They then turned their attention to M’Lean, and after sewing up and dressing the frightfully-mutilated jaw, left him in charge of a guard of the 70th Regiment, that had been placed on the house by the Adjutant, Lieutenant Hill.