Triple Tragedy At Vavau

(From Our Tonga Correspondent) A TRAGEDY has recently upset the calm of the Vava’u group.

Lute, a Tongan living in the village <pf Longamapu, Vava’u, be came distressed at the attentions which ’Ofiu, a driver for Morris Hedstrom’s, Neiafu, was paying to his wife. On the afternoon of September 18, he saw the couple enter a house together. When they came out, he was waiting for them with a shot-gun. Pushing his wife aside, he took aim and fired at ’Ofiu’s head, killing him immedi ately.

After the murder, Lute got his four-year-old son and went into the bush, telling his wife to follow them.

Terrified, she ran instead to the main road and found a lorry to take her to Neiafu, where she reported the tragedy to the police.

Police efforts to bring in Lute failed, but on September 22, a small party of searchers headed by the father of Lute, discovered the bodies

of Lute and his son near an old cattle fence in the bush. Lute had killed the boy and then committed suicide. They had been dead several days when they were discovered.

Scenes shot by the New Zealand camera-men Roger Mirams and John O’Shea during the July festivities in Papeete this year, have now been released in a new travel film made for Tasman Empire Air ways and entitled The Link. The film, which will be seen along the Islands of the Coral Route in due course, includes shots of New Zea land scenic attractions and of Sydney.