TRAGIC DEATH.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10097, 20 September 1910, Page 3

TRAGIC DEATH.

OF ADAM McMORRAN.

SHOT THROUGH THE HEART,

Adam Mcmorran, for many years resident of Masterton, who was driver of the Porirua-Titahi Bay coach, and a familiar figure to frequenters of the Titahi seaside, ended his life on Sunday afternoon about '3 o'clock in a very determined and sensational manner in the back yard of his house at Porirua. At, midday Macmurrau went to the Porirua Hotel and borrowed a doublebarrelled gun, saying that ha desired to shoot a cog which had become troublesome at his place. His dead body was subsequently found in his back yard, the circumstances pointed to a rather extraordinary manner of suicide. The man had apparently spread out a horse cover on the ground, on which he rested. The butt end of the gun was tied to a water barrel, and a stick placed through the trigger guard. Theu ha must have sat in front of it, with the muzzle pointing straight to his heart. Pressing the trigger with his feet and holding the barrel of the weapon in hia hands, th 3 fatal shot was fired. Macmorran, who was about forty years of age, was a married man. He was a retired jockey. He had, it is said, declared more than once to men in the vicinity, "I'll give them a big surprise one of these mornings." The body was removed into Macmorran's house to await an inquest. As a horseman, Adam Macmorran was at one time a well-known figure on the New Zealand turf, and many horses were steered to victory by his capable hands on the flat and later on over hurdles. He rode Whakawatea in many of that sensational two year old's victories; was astride of Hotu in the Nelson Cup of 1900; was on Ravenswing in the Great Autumn Handicap twenty-one years ago; on St. Clair in 1888 in the Dunedin Birthday Handicap and the Napier Cup, and won with Cruchfield in the Hawke's Bay Cup the same year; Hinekoa in Marlborough Cup, 1903. In addition to these races Macmorran won scores of handicap races in both islands.