Crime Scene

This sketch by artist Eugene Charles Buckley, depicts the place where 27 year old artist Mary Dobie was murdered on 25 November 1880.  She was killed at Te Namu Bay near Opunake, where she had walked to sketch Mount Taranaki for the London Graphic, the newspaper owned by her uncle. Walter Stannard was initially suspected of committing the crime after he was seen in Opunake with bloody clothing on the day of the murder; although a depositions hearing cleared him of any wrongdoing when it was proved that the blood had come from his horse’s bleeding nose. At the conclusion of Stannard’s hearing, Tuhiata, known as Tuhi and pictured in the sketch by Buckley, confessed to the murder. Tuhi claimed that he had followed Mary Dobie without any intention of killing her. She became frightened and gave him what little money she was carrying on her. When she warned Tuhi that she would "tell the soldiers" about him, he panicked and killed her. The jury returned a guilty verdict in less than half an hour, and Tuhi was immediately sentenced to death by hanging which took place later in 1880 at Wellington’s Terrace Gaol.