SHOCKING AFFAIR.

Hokitika Guardian, 16 May 1922, Page 3

SHOCKING AFFAIR.

WIFE AND FOUR CHILDREN

DROWNED IN BATH. [BY TELKGRAPH PER TRESS ASSOCIATION] AUCKLAND, May Hi. James Arthur Thornton, residing in Garden Road, Epsom, on returning from work in the city about ten last night, found his wife and four children (a hoy of seven years, a girl of four years, a hoy of two years and an infant of six months) drowned ill a hath. THE AUCKLAND TRAGEDY. FURTHER PARTICULARS. AUCKLAND, May 16. James Thornton, n foreman cleaner on the railway left his wife and children at liome alsmt 12.20, mid-day yesterday the wife and family being in ordinary health and spirts. On returning home after work he found both the front and back- doors lock, the gas alight in the breakfast room. Getting no response to knocking. he burst open the front door and found his wife miked in the hath and her infant child on her ,breast both dead. The hath was empty of water probably through the woman’s feet dislodging the plug. Ascertaining that life was extinct Thornton looked for the other three children and found them all dead in bed in the bedroom facing the bathroom. Each body was wrapped in a separate sheet their hair saturated with water and froth oozing from their months.

The theory is the mother stripped each child and drowned it in the hath and then wrapped it in a sheet, laid each body on the bed and pulled the bed clothes over it.

There arc no other signs of violence on the bodies, LATER PARTICULARS. AUCKLAND, May 16. Within about ten minutes of his arrival home and the awful discovery Thornton aroused the neighbours with his terrible story. The jKilice were communicated with and a doctor called. Most of the wife’s clothes were found hung over the door of the bathroom, and the clothing of the children lying on the table in the kitchen. Apparently the last any of the neighbours saw of the family was at three o’clock in the afternoon.

The house is a five-roomed dwelling, owned by Mrs Thornton, well furnished and spotlessly clean. Everything is in order, and nothing to indicate in the least degree that there had l>een any struggle or disturbance preceding the tragedy.