FEARFUL TRAGEDY IN DUNEDIN.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1189, 7 February 1880, Page 2

FEARFUL TRAGEDY IN DUNEDIN.

Dunbdin, February 7. : A shocking tragedy occurred in Kingstreet early this morning. Attwell Hayesj a contractor,, cut his wife's throat with a arid afterwards committed suicide. When the alarm was .given by a lodger in the House, Hayes had only a mere scratch on his neck, but while the inmates went' for ■ assistance, Hayes . went into _ the kitchen, inflicting a fearful wound with a. carving knife, death resulting almost immediately. There is reason to believe that Hayes was laboring from insanity, which is proved to run through the family. Hayes was about fifty years of age, and liis wife forty. An inquest will be held on Monday. • LATER PARTICULARS. The house is known as Linceln'Cottage, and is situated between: Union and St. David-streets. It was occupied by the Hayes family, consisting of the father, mother, and a son and daughter. It appears, that one of the. sons, who has been in the employ of Mr. R. T. Wheeler, of this city, has been suffering from ill-health, and that this so preyed on his mind that he had become insane, and had to be confined in the Lunatic Asylum. This in turn is supposed to have preyed upon the mind of the father, Attwell Hayes. He came home apparently all right last night, but this morning, on waking up, he proceeded to cut his wife's throat with a table-knife.. .After succeeding in this attempt, he made for the children, with the intention of murdering them also, but they ran out of the house into the garden, where he followed them, and succeeded in inflicting some w ; ounds on his son. Not succeeding in catching either of them, however, he returned to the house. At this stage the attention of a neighbor uained Gilks, a greengrocer, was attracted by screams of the children, and, throwing down a bundle he was carrying, he rushed into the house, and _ found Hayes in : the act of cutting his own throat. This Gilks prevented him from doing by taking the knife from him, and laid it down to attend to Mrs. Hayes, who was lying in the room. Whilst Gilks was thus engaged, Hayes seized the knife again,-and succeeded in severing his windpipe before Gilks observed that he had again .got hold of: the knife. It appears that there was a lodger in the house also, and. that Hayes, on coming in from the garden after attempting to catch his son and daughter, made an attempt to murder the • lodger also. The boy, who is not seriously injured, is about twelve years of age, but the girl is much older. The son who is at present in the Lunatic Asylum is twenty-two years .old-