Love and death - the killing of Nurse Peggy
'She wanted to see the site where her aunt was murdered'
Seacliff’s ‘Enchanted Forest’ Photo: Hamish McNeilly
It is a weird thing to be on holiday and receive emails about stories you wrote weeks earlier.
Especially when those two stories involved two tragedies; the brutal murder of André Jose on Stewart Island on December 14, 1927, and the devastating fire at the former Seacliff Lunatic Asylum on the night of December 8, 1942.
An email from a historian noted that Arthur Victor Valentine, who bludgeoned the diminutive Jose to death and later died on remand, may have also met his death through unconventional means, rather than the reported heart failure.
André Jose. RAKIURA MUSEUM/SUPPLIED
That involved poison smuggled into prison by the Masons. Incredible, but impossible to prove.
But on the story of Seacliff, I received numerous emails from around the country, from people still impacted by the asylum.
As the sign says: Seacliff. Photo: Hamish McNeilly
That included a heartbreaking email from the granddaughter of a woman who perished in the fire.
She wrote:
‘I believe she was there because she was suffering with postnatal depression, something not well understood at that time.’
She supported the Dunedin City Council’s move to update its management plan for the 16-hectare Truby King Recreational Reserve, which will include a memorial to the 37 women who died.
So far so good, but it was another email which floored me.
It came from Aucklander David Hullah, who wrote that in March 2020 he took his then 94-year-old mother, Margaret Wells, on a trip around the South Island in his motorhome.
‘‘As we were approaching Dunedin, my mother asked me to divert onto the back road so we could pass through Seacliff, as she wanted to see the site where her aunt was murdered.’’
David Hullah and his mother Margaret Wells during their South Island trip: Photo: Supplied
The Australia-based Wells told her son that Peggy was her favourite aunt (turns out she was actually her cousin) but her visits stopped when she was a young child.
It was only a few years later when she found out Peggy, a nurse at Seacliff, had been murdered.
Some of the remnants of the former hospital. Photo Hamish McNeilly
Hulluh recalled his mother telling that a former boyfriend had turned up at the front desk of the hospital, and later cut Peggy’s throat before killing himself in the hospital’s grounds.
That reminded me of another murder in the tiny township of old when Stephen Findlay killed his neighbour Sharon Comerford before turning his gun on himself in the grounds of the reserve.
But Findlay survived, and in 2017 was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of 11 years.
Convicted murderer Stephen Findlay in the Dunedin High Court. Photo: Hamish McNeilly
Hullah recalled a newspaper clipping about his great aunt’s case but not much more - hence the email which began with: ‘You may be interested in the following’.
I typed ‘Peggy’ and ‘Seacliff’ into the search engine of the excellent Papers Past and found what I was looking for.
The Press Association’s report from August 24, 1928 starts with this line:
A single woman, Peggy Mclnnes, was found at Waitati shortly after midnight with her throat cut and head bashed in, and nearby was found the body of Thomas Ellis with his throat cut.
The murder actually happened at Orokonui Hospital, a former psychiatric hospital, about halfway between Dunedin and Seacliff.
Other reported revealed it was Ellis who was found first.
A follow-up story, entitled ‘Driven Insane By Jealousy’ said McInnes, a 25-year-old nurse, had been transferred from Seacliff to Orokonui.
It was at Seacliff where McInnes met Ellis, a 35-year-old Dunedin bricklayer, who was working on a new kitchen building at the coastal Dunedin site.
The pair had courted for several months before the tragedy, which unfolded in the grounds of the Orokonui Hospital.
Earlier that evening Ellis, who had received news their relationship was over, had visited McInnes at her work. She later left her job at 8pm, wearing her uniform under a brown coat.
Later that evening a staff member heard the sounds of groans coming from the grounds. It was there staff found Ellis with his throat cut.
The headstone for Peggy McInnes. PHOTO: Dunedin City Council
Ellis died before police arrived, but those officers were later tasked with finding a missing nurse: McInnes.
Hours later they made a grim discovery with McInnes found lying on a blanket under a large pine tree.
Her face had been bashed in and her throat was cut.
The murder weapons - a pen knife and a stone wrapped in a hankerchief - were found at the scene.
Tellingly, police found a note in Ellis’ pocket. That note, sent by McInnes, indicated she would meet him at a prearranged time and date.
The inquest included a colleague of McInnes who said the young nurse was deciding between two men, including Ellis, whom she was lukewarm on.
But the pair were spotted arguing at a dance at Seacliff, after Ellis - later described in a report by the Otago Daily Times as a ‘tall, thin, dark man’ - saw her dancing with other men.
“The facts of this sad tragedy are only too plain,” said the Coroner. “It is obvious that Nurse Mclnnes was murdered by Ellis who then cut his throat.”
I’d like to thank David for sharing his family’s story.
So I’m back in Dunedin after spending a couple weeks exploring some other parts of New Zealand.
Here is a holiday snap of me doing the family laundry in Gisborne, after driving from the East Cape in soaring temperatures on New Year’s Eve. Sums up 2021.
A holiday snap of me doing the family laundry in Gisborne, after driving from the East Cape in soaring temperatures on New Year’s Eve. Photo: Me
While the temperatures are cooler in Dunedin I appreciate the lack of blood-sucking insects and not needing to sleep with a fan on.
Which brings me to the greatest TV ad of all time. Dunedin: It’s all right here (spoiler: it is not It’s alright here as I previous thought)
Enjoy.
And that brings me to Tweet of the Week, which goes to photographer Joe Allison who captured this beauty (please click for full image of loose seal on a Dunedin road).
Lastly here is a great Dunedin tune Eshi Avizodn with NU PPAC
Have a great week. And if you have anything you want me to look at, please email me at hamish.mcneilly@stuff.co.nz.