TERRIBLE TRAGEDY AT DUNEDIN. THREE PERSONS MURDERED. [BY TELEGRAMS, UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.] Dunedin, Sunday.

Waikato Times, Volume XIV, Issue 1204, 16 March 1880, Page 2

TERRIBLE TRAGEDY AT DUNEDIN. THREE PERSONS MURDERED. [ BY TELEGRAMS , UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.] Dunedin, Sunday.

One of the most horrible tragedies which ever occurred happened this morning ia Cumberland-Street, when James Murray Dewar, alias Grant, a butcher in the employ of Dornwell, of George-street, was found dead, his wife injured almost beyond hope of recovery, his child suffocated, and the bedroom on fire, a lighted candle having been placed under the bed. The deceased man was aged about 30 years, and has been in this colony nearly "22 years. His proper name was Dewar, but his mother, who lesides in a house just behind his, having married a carpenter named Grant, he adopted his stejjfather's name. Between 5 and G o'clock this morning the milkman who supplies the family, on making" his customary vudfc to the house, was startled by seeing smoke issuing from one of the front windows. He knocked loudly at the front door, and received no reply. He raised an alarm, which brought some neighbours to the scene, and subsequently a member of the fire brigade and Sergeant Dean &,nd a constable. On the house being entered, there was discovered, lying on the floor, Mrs Grant in her uightdrcss, with blood issuing from her head, and quite unconscious. The bedroom was next visited, and was full of smoke. There, on the bed, lay Mr Grant, with severe blows on his head, evidently inflicted by an axe, which lay at hand, and which bore mar* sof blood on it. The infant was also in bed, apparently suffocated, the lower part of the mattress having been set fire to by a lighted candle which was found alongside of it. Mrs Grant was then lifted from off the floor, carried into the sitting-room, and Dr. Niven, who was &ent for, on seeing her condition, ordered her removal to the hospital. The tragedy must have been committed very early this monring. By "whom it has been done, whether the act of a stranger, or by either of the Grants, is a question that the police are now endeavorto solve So far as we can learn, nothing has beee misled from the house, nor does anything in the other rooms appear to be disturbed. The only suspicious circumstances is that the door of the house was found to be open. The wound on Grant's head, and those on his wife appeared to the unprofessional eye to negative the theory of having been self-inflicted, and there is the additional circumstance vouched for by many people who knew the couple intimately, that they lived very happy lives. The strangest part of the whole aft'air is that none of the neighbours, some of whom lived about twelve feefc from Grant's house, heard the slightest noise, and were awakened by an alarm of fire, which, from another source, we learn was raised by a fireman who lives clo«e by. The woman, who still lies unconscious at the hospital, has three wounds on the head, causing a compound depressed fracture of the skull. One of the wounds is on the crown of the head, the second behind the right ear, and the third on the temple. 'ihe affair has caused great excitement.