TIMARU TRAGEDY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2196, 30 October 1920, Page 3

TIMARU TRAGEDY.

YOUTH SHOT BY BURGLAR

Timarn, October 27,

'What appears Jo have been a murder occurred in Nelson Terrace to-night. A youth named Clarence Wagstaff was sleeping in a-ten I near the house, when a friend, who stayed with him, returned from the pictures. While the latter was undressing he saw a man prowling* round the house. He awoke 'Wagstaff, and both went to see who it was. They wont in different ways round the ■.house, and Wags tail’ met Dio man and caught hold of him. The man broke a way amR fired three shots.' One hit the youth in the left chest. The man got away. Wagstaff was removed to the hospital, where he died an hour later. The culprit is unknown.

FURTITER DETAILS

Timarn, Oct. 28

At (he inqiumt on (ho death of Clarence Edward Wags tali’, Henry Vvagstaf'l', father of deceased, staled that his son slept in a hut apart from the house. About 1- pan. he heard persons running round the lonise,.and the sound of ;useufVle. He heard his son calling out, and went to the door and saw a man running towards (Ik* front fence. The man turned round and look deliberate uiiu and bred, he thought, three times. The man then jumped the fence. Ills son‘fell after the .shots. Knapp, who stayed with his son, went through the gate after the man. lie rang for the doctor and police, and when the doctor came he ordered the hoy to the ho.spii,al, whore he died at 12.15 a.m. He had not the slightest idea who tired the shot, hut it seemed to he a revolver from the rapidity of the shots. Clifford Vincent Knapp, an employee of the Public Trust Office, stated that ho went to the sleeping pia.ee a chain from the house at 11 pan, Deceased was in had, bn! whilst undressing bo looked out ihrongh an aperture in the door and saw a man crouching between the side of Urn house and the fence. He said to WagstnJT: “There’s a man trying to get into the house.” Wags la IV rose, put: on his pants and hoots, and keeping on dm grass, both went to (he (Toni of the house. Tiny saw a man at” the front doer. When he saw them the man retnrn-

ml in the side of Ihe house, Vi'ag--lalf followed him, ami witness went round to the oilier side to intercept him. When witness got to ihe back of (he house the man jumped a low concrete wall, followed by deceased. Witness' tackled the man, but be was pushed aside, and deceased continued the chase, followed by witness. When deceased had reached ihe corner of ihe house witness heard a shot, (hen two others in quick succession. The first narrowly grazed wilness 1 head, but the second or third must have been the fatal one. Wagslaff staggered a few steps and fell. The man had crossed The fronl lawn (o the fence, which he jumped, and Hum ran down Sefton street. ’Wilness wont through Ihe gate and followed him to a vacant section ai the foot of Sea view Terrace. He heard Ihe distressing cries of his friend, and gave up the chase and returned to the house. It was a moonlight night, but the moon was partly obscured by clouds. However, he distinctly saw thd man. Dr. Gibson stated that he found a ballet wound one inch below the left collarbone, one and a-half inches from the middle line. The bullet passed through cartilages between the first and second ribs, through the main vessel, quite close to the heart, and then penetrated the gullet, and was lying on the oilier side close to the spine in the soft tissue at a lower level than the onler wound. Death was due to hemorrhage from a puncture of the vein at the root of Hie heart.