A WELLINGTON TRAGEDY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2752, 5 March 1910, Page 5

A WELLINGTON TRAGEDY.

SIMPLE QUARREL LEADS TO SUDDEN MURDER.

ELDERLY BAILIFF SHOOTS HIS ASSAILANT DEAD.

[Per Press Association. ] WELLINGTON, March 4. Pipitea Street, TJiorndon, was the scene of a tragedy just after six o’clock to-night, Christopher Dennis Smith, a draper’s assistant, being shot dead by a bailiff named Robert Corkhill. It is alleged that the deceased severely assaulted Corkhill and two boys, who were startled eyewitnesses, state that Corkhill was seen to get up off the ground after a souffle with Smith and then, aim, with the result that Smith fell dead, shot through the heart. The murderer is in custody. The victim of the tragedy was a married man whose -wife lived in Blenheim. Tie had been employed until recently by Messrs Warnock and Atkin, drapers, of Lambton Quay, and boarded at GO, Pipitea Street, the landlady being a Miss Smith. A few days ago Miss Smith gave up the place and went to Manakau. Another tenant was found for the house and furniture, and an attempt was made to take possession, but it is alleged that Smith resisted and threatened violence. When the bouse agent’s representative called on Thursday Smith and some other boarders arc said to have held the opinion that their week vms up on Friday, and they could not he compelled to leave before that time. Therefore the agents instructed a private bailiff, Robert Corkhill, to take charge of the house yesterday afternoon. Corkhill is sixty years of age and well known in the city. He went to the house just after 6 o’clock and encountered Smith, who objected to leave. Smith is a well-built man of between 35 and 40 years of age and is alleged to have turned Corkhill out of the house and knocked him down on the concrete footpath in a harrow side entrance. Then the scuffle rapidly developed into tragedy. Smith, with his coat off and sleeves tucked up, watched the bailiff get upon his feet and within a few seconds was staggering from the gate with a bullet wound in the chest. He died before he could get back into the house. Corkhill, when he got up, was seen holding his hand to his face as if he had been injured by the fall, and he instantly ■whfpped a small five-chambered revolver put of his hip pocket and took aim, with fatal effect. Everything occurred quietlv and the curious people who gathered SEEMED TO SCARCELY REALISE that there had been a murder. Smith lay on the concrete footpath of the house unattended, his arms stretched out and life gone, while Corkhill walked up and down the street in an agitated manner, fingering the revolver in bis pocket. "Jrle seemed to be a man with a sense of having been treated unjustly,” stated an eye-witness of this strange scene, “and was more afraid of wbat the crowd might do than anything else.” The police were present within a few minutes, Inspector Ellison, who lives not far away, being summoned by telephone. Corkhill, meanwhile, had tired or walking aimlessly backward and forward. He made for Molesworth Street and turned around the corner towards the city and the central (police station. Then a couple of onlookers seized him by the arms and threw him to the ground. A five-chambered revolver of small pattern was taken front him and found to hold four loaded cartridges and one which had been discharged. He was taken unresistingly to the police station, mumbling something incoherent about the house in Pipitea Street, and he told the police that Smith knocked him down. The body was examined by Dr Izard, who found that the bullet wound just below the heart had quickly proved fatal. Detective Cameron aud Constable Callery removed the deceased to the morgue. There was just a small punctured wound to show where the bullet entered and there was very little external bleeding. The decased, judging by the appearance of the body, was in. the prime of life and in good health. It is said that during the last few days he had been drinking. According to a fellow-boarder he had served as a Sergt.-Major in the last South African War.