AWFUL TRAGEDY

Hokitika Guardian, 2 November 1928, Page 6

AWFUL TRAGEDY

FOUR PERSONS SHOT

(Australian Press Association)

(United Service)

SYDNEY, Nov. 1

A sensational shooting affray occurred this afternoon in Harrow Road, Rockdale, a Sydney .suburb, when a man entered a bouse and blazed away ivith a revolver. He shot three women and a. man and lie is believed to have then turned the weapon on himself. Two uf the women were killed, the others being in a serious condition.

Later details disclose that four are now dead. The victims are:—Garnet Robb, aged forty years, a returned soldier. Miss Palmer, aged thirty years. Mrs Edith Palmer, junior, aged forty-two years. Mrs Elizabeth Ashley, housekeeper. Still another man. Joseph Palmer, aged eighty years is critically injured. Hitherto an invalid and blind, lie was just able to utter something about ••Murder in the bouse!”

The crime was apparently committed by Robb, u, nephew of Mrs Palmer. He is described as a religous maniac .and a spiritualist, and tho Palmer family were known to lie frying lo get him out of the house. He recently came from his farm at Alimbin, on the Xprtheni Rivers. The tragedy was discovered by a woman friend of Mrs Palmer, who found the house in great disorder, with a corpse here and another there. Edith Palmer was lying on a sola, hut was not dead. She was just aide to give the most brief details. The police were immediately summoned. They tonnd Robb dead upstairs on a bed. with a ballet, wound in the cbpst. There were two rilles. with hundreds of rounds of ammunition and also a long knife sharpened to a sharp point. The police ascertained that the family was sitting at lunch when Robb entered and shot one alter another. He then went upstairs ami shot himself, manipulating the trigger with the toe of his hoot.

Tho aged survivor. Palmer. was formerlv a railway employee. There are two bullets in his abdomen. Edith Pallin'" died about hall an hour alter her admission io the hospital. There were two bullet wounds in her chest. She was well-known in musical circles and was a member of i lie • ‘Cheer Ob Girls." which company raised a considerable sum ol monev for charitable purposes. Ashley bad been with the Palmer family for veers. SYDNEY. Nov. 2. Correction: I n Hie Rockedale victims. substitute Alexander for Garnet Robb, and Mrs Claude Palmer for Alins Pal The latter was shot in the neck, the jugular being severed .