A TUNNEL TRAGEDY.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9365, 6 February 1909, Page 6

A TUNNEL TRAGEDY.

London, December 18. A dramatic murder , and suicide * took place late last night on tbe Southampton to Cardiff express. The bodies were identified by Mrs Clarke of the Yews, Chepstow road, Cardiff, as those of her daughter. Miss Catherine Edith Gwendolen Clarke, twenty-one years old, and Mr Arthur P, Whintle, a gas engineer, ofjMead street, Temple-gate, Bristol, i The tragedy ooourred just as the 9.30 p.m. express emerged from the Severn tunnel As the train was leaving the tunnel the guard heard six revolver shots in quick succession. , The train was stopped, and tbe guard ran along tbe footboard to the carriage from which the report came. He found a man and woman lying dead on the floor of the compartment. Death was due to shot wounds and the injuries seemed to show that the man had first shot his com panion and then turned tbe revolver on himself. The bodies were taken to Newport and removed to the mortuary. Mr Lewis, an uncle of the girl, said that "Winkle met his niece in Cardiff, and made love to her. They became engaged, but her family discovered that he was a married man with a family of two children at Coventry, where a maintenance order was made against him last week. Latterly it appears that Miss Clarke has been corresponding with him secretly, which accounts for a letter from him addressed to a restaurant at Newport being found on her body. - Miss Clarke left home early yesterday morning to go to Bristol about a situation, and it is supposed that she met Wintle there by appointment, and started back with him to Newport. When tbe bodies were examined at Newport it was found that Miss Clarke had four wounds in the neck, and that Wintle had a wound extending from tbe mouth to the back of the head. A six-chambered revolver with all the chambers discharged were found on the floor of the railway carriage between tbe victims.