TWO NOTORIOUS REBELS SHOT.

Marlborough Express, Volume IV, Issue 166, 27 March 1869, Page 1 (Supplement)

TWO NOTORIOUS REBELS SHOT.

The Turanganui correspondent ot the Hawke’s Bevy Herald , writing on March 7th, reports that Keke (a Chatham Island prisoner! but who refused to join Te Kooti in his murderous work), went into the bush to look for fugitives, when he found a number of Te Kooti’s people, who had been wandering in the bush since the fall of Ngatapa j among them were Te Iho Ariki, Nikora, and Peka, who assisted in the Poverty Bay massacres. The writer says :

“ Keke sent a note to Mr. Wyllie, Government interpreter. It announced that Te Iho Ariki, Nikora, and Peka were amongst Keke’s prisoners. As Ariki had had assisted to murder Mr. Wyllie’s son ; and Nikora, after murdering poor old Mr. Newnham, his wife, and their adopted child, had cut off Mr. Newnham’s head and split it in two pieces; and as, moreover, Peka vyas one of the three guides, and present to assist in all murders : Mr. Wyllie says that, irrespective of his feelings as a father fond of his son, he felt such villains ought not to get off scot free, like Karepa. Accordingly, he waited upon Major Westrupp first, and Captain Tuke afterwards, to whom he related the antecedents of Messrs. Ariki and Co. It appears neither of the officers could be induced to assume the responsibility of ordering the execution of three murderers without trial, and in the absence of the E.M. from Poverty Bay; and Mr. Wyllie retired from both interviews with the conviction, shared in by almost everyone here, that, like Karepa and others, three desperate villains would escape unless summary measures were used to prevent it. “ On Friday night, at 11 o’clock, Messrs Wyllie, Henson, Suche(acousin of Mokena), and Wi Brown, a half-caste, whose brother Pukua was brutally murdered and mangled by Te Iho Ariki, arrived at Keke’s camp, near Patutahi. The prisoners were found sleeping round the expiring embers of their fire. Walking into the midst of the group, Mr. Wyllie said, ‘Nikora, I know you are here, get up and die.’ No response, though the demand was oft redeated. Mr. Wyllie next struck a light to discover the murderers. Nikora then got up, and, moving part Mr. Wyllie, made for a low fence. He was fired at by the European party, but neverthe less scrambled over and was seen reeling into the scrub. It was toodark to trace him then, but was pursued by Panapa, a chief of high standing, who has since returned, in grief that Nikora cannot be found, although he was tracked by his blood for a long distance through the dense manuka scrub. I suppose we may account him dead. He must have been riddled with bullets by five men at five yards distance—good marksmen too. “ After Nikora’s departure Mr. Wyllie and friends returned to camp, and then Heme te Iho Ariki, the murderer of his son, was in turn ordered to rise by Mr. Wyllie. He complied at once, and, nearjy touching the carbine of that gentlemen, was shot through the breast by that gentleman—not to expire at once. It is Said he confessed his crimes before he was finally despatched by Mr. Wyllie an the others, which was done by shooting the wretch through the brain. V, “ Teka, that other scoundrel, was also to have been executed, but fate willed it otherwise. Three hours previously he had fled to Murewai to seek shelter at what has been not inaptly styled “ the murderer’s retreat,” and possibly to hatch new schemesof murderer with his confrere Karepa.