SHOCKING TRAGEDY IN CANTERBURY. WIFE MURDER AND SUICIDE.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 338, 30 January 1889, Page 3

SHOCKING TRAGEDY IN CANTERBURY. WIFE MURDER AND SUICIDE.

Tub vLyfctelton Times 1 '- contains ifche. following additional ' • particulars 'of the tragedy near Ashburton.: {Nob . for 1 six or seven years > has the little hamlefc, .of Cherfcsey, Canterbury, had,' anything in, the „ehape^,of a tragedy enacted within \ its borders. About that' time since an; "qld t< man .and, a woman — tramps — la'y t down drunk, by the • railway line, and <, in ' the' early morning the man ,was found dead by' the, ; side of his partner. , Since : .tthen,» a poor fellow drank himself to death' in the same village, a mate of, his bearing sad testimony' to the potency of th 6 " Ghertsey whiskey" that was then retailed at the local hotel.' Since then the hotel has changed hands several times', and, a very marked improvement has taken -place in its management. Things have gone on. very quietly since then, and the hamlet- has lived on in the .even tenor of its way. Village settlements -have been planted down in its near vicinity, -and the settlers appeared to. be getting along, happily. On Thui'sday, however, one- 1 ot -them \was , in •Ashburton, and went to the Police Station to complain of his wife having left him ; and the Sergeant - promised <■ to do something - in the . matter. , He > communicated with L the , constable at Rakaia. That officer, on , arrival at Chertsey, was just in time to, see the man, whose name is Frank Fa,hey, with '.his arm', round his wife's waist, , firing shots at her from a revqlyer. ,Eahey theft turned the weapon against .his own head, and fell. The woman's death- was. almost immediate, but the man lived until shortly after mid-day. Di\ Tweed and Sergeant Felton were telegraphed for, and the doctor arrived in time to see Fahey die. He made a post-mortem examination of both bodies,, and at two o'clock .an inquest was held in the Chertsey Hotel, at which the Coroner, Captain Wray. R.M. , presided, and Mr J. Wills, was Foreman of the Jury. After heaving the evidence, the Jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against Fahey in the case of his wife, and of felo de se in his own case. It is understood the children will be sent to the St. Mary's school at Nelson. The' eldest child is nine years, the second five, and the younger twenty months. The case is a most extraordinary one, as the officer actually saw, the murder committed, and saw the man shoot himself to save himself from arrest. The village settlement is about half a mile or so below the Chertsey railway station, that is, to the northward. Fahey's house is a good way along the "road, but Thompson's, the house at which the murder and suicide were committed, is at least twenty chains nearer the township. Murder or suicide on the part of Fahey was never even suspected by his neighbours. He was kno\\n to be a very rough man when-in liquor, but when sober, he was quiet, hardworking man, and be only occasionally took a bout at drinking. (Remarks have been made by people not conversant with the facts and the geography of \the place, on the extraordinary fact of the murder and the suicide having taken place in full view of the officer ; but Thompson's cottage stands at lea^t two and a half chains off the road. The constable had only reached' the gate .of the" section when the ... man fired three shots at the woman— -two at her, head — while she was standing,* and. the other when she "was lying prostrate.' < The man then took a straight line for the fenced while the constable .had to make a lofig angle ; and the suicide was committed before the man could be, reached. It ,will be at once" seen that it was impossible for the constable to do anything to prevent the tragedy., It is a matter of congi-atnlation that Fahey did not allow 'his well-known dislike to the police to influence his mind while in the state of desperation he must have been in when he shot his wife. Had he done so, he might have waited for the constable, and spent a cartridge on him before he turned the weapon upon himself. Father Binsfield, of Ashburton, .drove down to Chertsey in the afternoon to see about the unfortunate children who had' been made orphans by ths act of their father/s ungoverned fury ; and Inspector Pender was alsb present, having come up from Christchurch by the mid-day j train. ■ Fahey was a, man about thirty-six years of age, and had been a long time in Canter* bury. He has executed many roads and other contracts during his residence in the district, but his unsteady habits have on too many occasions brought, him into the hands of tho police, to whom he wasj' unfortunately for himself, very well known.