MURDER ALLEGED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 August 1939, Page 5

MURDER ALLEGED

FATE OF MRS HARRIET PATIENCE HUSBAND ARRESTED & CHARGED. SEQUEL TO EXTENDED INQUIRY. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH. August 3. Arthur John Patience, Public Works Department employee, was arrested in Kaikoura today on a charge of having murdered his wife, Harriet Jane Patience. He was brought to Christchurch this evening, and will appear in the Magistrates’ Court tomorrow morning. The police will ask for a remand to enable the assembly of evidence to be completed. Counsel for Patience will be Mr R. A. Young. Mrs Patience was in her fifty-ninth year. She lived with her husband at Claverley Public Works camp, from which she disappeared on October 4, 1938. She is reported to have been seen about 8. o’clock that night covering up a wood pile at the hut to protect it from rain.

A party of nine from the Christchurch police force was sent to Claverley on October 24 to search for Mrs Patience. They began extensive digging over rough country about the camp near the sea coast. Their numbers were increased till later a bulldozer was brought in to assist them in digging into the cliffs and turning over spoil thrown from railway works. Besides digging on the beach, police combed the back country near the settlement and dragged swamps and streams. Their activities by January had extended as far as 20 miles from Claverley.

A patrol of the sea -coast from the mouth of the Conway River to Kaikoura, a distance of about 30 miles, was conducted daily for a long period, as it was thought that the body of Mrs Patience might be washed ashore from the sea. On January 20 it was announced that the police search would be abandoned. The men were withdrawn from digging and patrolling operations, but inquiries were continued.

On July 20 of this year the body of a woman was found on Taratuhi beach, about two miles north of Claverley. It was subsequently identified to the satisfaction of the coroner at an inquest opened in Christchurch as the body of Mrs Patience. Evidence of identification was given at the inquest by Mrs Patience's mother, her son and her niece.