THE OPUNAKE MURDER. The Murderer Confesses. LETTER TO HIS FRIENDS. [BY TELEGRAPH, PRESS ASSOCIATION.] Opunake, Yesterday.

Waikato Times, Volume XV, Issue 1315, 2 December 1880, Page 3

THE OPUNAKE MURDER. The Murderer Confesses. LETTER TO HIS FRIENDS. [BY TELEGRAPH , PRESS ASSOCIATION.] Opunake, Yesterday.

Turn has made the following statement :— "I saw deceased coming. I tied my horse in the flax, and went towards her. She gave me sixpence and fourpence ; the threepenny-pieces and halfpenny referred to antl paid Coffey is correct. I caught her with the right hand, and stabbed her with the left. I dragged her to the flax bush, and stabbed her again, and seeing her still living, dragged her to another and cut her thropt, when life waa extinct." The following is the murderer's letter to his friends :— "Salutations to you all who remain over there ! Great is my love for you all at this time. You will not see me again. I have given myself for food for the birds of Heaven. This is all the adieu. A long love cannot return me to the house. Where is the fear ? We were in the first sunny days overtaken by sin. This is all. To Te Wharengaro : Let not your minds be troubled about me. I have sinned— murdered. On no account let the thought return to me.' Cry not at all. With the great priest is the thought for me. This is all. To Te Wharengaro : < ome here, and see me ■ and take away with you the horse; Come by yourself. Let not the others come with you. This is all. It is finished. From your son, Tuhuaata. Written for me by Mr ttursthouse." It ia understood that the Coroner has sent to the Minister of Justice, to know whether Tuhi could not be sent to New I lymouth in the Hiremoa from Opunake, otherwise he will go under a fctroug escort of not le*B ti>au 20 meu. Rona and other natives who jrave strong evidence against Tuhi were influenced by ihe feeling- of his crime being committed on their ground. They thought if the prisoner wiched to kill a pakeha, he ought to havg £one into his own district, and were angry at him. Tubiis the son of a woman known as ol 1 Whari, or Whara, living between here and Hawera. It is said that his father was suspected of having murdered two sawyers in 1869. Tuhis mother is one of the handsomest Maori women on the coa&t, and the murderer inherits her good looks and grand physique. No motives for the crime have yet been assigned. The Hinemoa proceeds to Opunake at once to convey tha murderer Tuhi from that place to New Plymouth, where he will be tried at the next sitting of the Supreme Court there.