TIMARO SENSATION

Hokitika Guardian, 29 October 1920, Page 1

TIMARO SENSATION

INQUEST PROCEEDINGS. (Per Pross Association.) TIMAIIU, Oct. 26. The inquest touching the death of .Clarence Edward Wagstaff, was held to-night by Mr Mosely, Coroner. Henry Wagstaff, father of the deceased, stated that his soil slept in a hut apart from the house. About 11 p.m. witness, being in bed, he heard persons running round the house and the sound of a scuffle. He heard his soli calling out and went to the door and saw a man running towards the front fence. He saw him tiirn round and take deliberate aim and fire. He thought the man fired three times. The man then turned and jumped the" fence. His son fell after the shots. Knapp, who stayed with his son, went through the gate after the man and lifted his son to the path, and then going to a neighbour’s house he rang for the doctor and the police. When the doctor came, ho attended the boy aiid ordered him to the hospital, where he died at 12.15 a.m. Witness had not the slightest idea who fired the shot. It seemed to be a revolver by the rapidity of the shots. Clifford Vincent Knapp,, an employee of the Public Trust Office, stated that he went to his sleeping place, a chain from the house, at 11 p.m. Deceased was in bed. Whilst lie was undressing he looked out through an aperture in the door and saw a man crouching between the side of the house and the fence. He said to Wagstaff: “There’s a mail trying to get into the house.” Wagstaff rose and put on his pants and boots. Keeping on the grass, both went to the front of the house and saw the man at the front door. When he saw them the man returned to the side of the house. Wagstaff followed film, .and witness went round to the other side to intercept him/ When witness got to the back of the house the man jumped a low concrete rail, followed by deceased. Witness tackled the man but was pushed aside. Deceased"continued to chase, followed by witness. When tile deceased had reached the corner of the house witness hoard a shot, then two others in quick succession. The' first narrowly grazed witness’s- head. The second and third must have been the fatal ones. W r agsta.ff staggered a few steps and then fell. The man had crossed the front lawn to the fence, which he jumped, and then ran down Scfton street. Witness went through tho gate and followed him to near a vacant, section at the foot of Sea- View Terrace. lie heard the distressing cries of his friend and gave up the chase and returned to the house. The .man disappeared to the northward. Reaching the house witness found deceased’s relatives and friends attending to him. From the rapidity of the firing lie concluded that a revolver had been Vised. It was a moonlight night, hut the moon was partly obscured by clouds; but he saw the man moving

distinctly. Dr Gibson testified to finding deceased lying on his back smothered in blood, and vomiting blood at intervals. He asked a constable to take a statement and.the boy was removed to the hospital, arriving there pulseless and hardly conscious. He died at 12.20 n.m. Witness made a post mortem during the day and found a bullet wound an inch below the left collar bone. There were no other outward wounds. The bullet had passed through the car-

tillage between the first and second ribs, through the main blood vessel quite close to the heart, and had then penetrated the gullet and was lying on the other side close to the spine in tlu soft tissues, at a lower level than the outer wound. The wound would in evitably cause death due/ to th( hcinorrehage from a puncture of tin main vein at the root of the heart. The Coroner’s verdict, according t< the medical evidence, was that deatl was caused by a intentionally fired by a person unknown.