ATROCIOUS DOUBLE MURDER. CHILD MUTILATION. FOUL DEED BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN COMMITTED BY A MAORI. GISBORNE, Last Night.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 323, 8 December 1888, Page 2

ATROCIOUS DOUBLE MURDER. CHILD MUTILATION. FOUL DEED BELIEVED TO HAVE BEEN COMMITTED BY A MAORI. GISBORNE, Last Night.

Tne steamer s. 3. Afisttalin, which arrived in bay last nijjhr, brought information that at Waipoio a most, atrocious mur-ier hns been committed, it is supposed on last Wedni'slny evening; Frank Pooke, n .storekeeper at Matuhu with his wife and child hav : ng been found horribly butchered. Pooko and his wife weie «!eai), but the child, though much mutilated, i^ still alive, Motahu is a small native village a few miles north of Waipoio. Mr Walli.fl, J. P., visited the spot shortly aFier the tragedy w.is disco vg re 1, and slates that Mr and Mrs Pooke wero found lying murdered in the, store. The bo lies were behind the counter. The bus -and had his head split open, the wound being evidently inflicted by an ax< 1 . The body of Mrs Pooke was lying across that of her husband. Her head was al&o split open and hei throat cut in such a manner that the hea I was nearly severe 1 from tho body. Pooke's throat was also cut, showing 1 that the nmnleier was detei mined to accomplish his diabolical pui pose. Their son,_agod seven yoars, was found in an insensible condition, having received a fe.-irful wound in the head, and having evidently been struck by the same instrument with which the parents were killed Mr Wallis had the boy conveyed to Gisborne and placed under Dr Poller's care. Robbery was the evident motive of the murder. The cash in the place was taken away, and footprints smeared with blood are all over the place, which had evidently been ransacked for money and valuables. The plundeier, it is thought, had been purchasing goods, as there was a bundle tied up on the counter and a paper was found with the items and prices of the articles, From the class of goods in the parcel, there is good "reason to believe that the perpetrator of the murder is a Maori. The sam store was broken into by a Maori with an axe in March last, who was arrested for it, but discharged owing to want of evidence. Mr ami Mrs Pooke belong to Raglan district, where Pook's parents still reside. Mrs Pooke , was a daughter of the late Captain Swan, of Raglan, and niece of Captain Fairchild. The wife of Mr W. Duncan, J.P., of Auckland, is a sister of the murdered woman.