On the 4th of May 1944 a young soldier, Richard Townsend Chorley aged 23, left his home in Trentham to go to work in Wellington. He had something special planned that day as well. He was planning to marry a young woman who he had known for around eight months, a miss Doreen Constance Duncan aged 23
Richard and Doreen had met when Richard had returned from serving overseas, he stayed with his friend, Cedric who lived with his father and stepmother, Mary Stuart Walker at their home on Daniell Street in Newtown. Cedric also had a cousin staying at the house. The cousin was Doreen. Richard (also known as Dick) lived with them for a few months before moving back to his parents home in Trentham just before Christmas.
Doreen was still living in the Daniell Street residence with Mary (who was Doreen’s Aunt) and the others on the morning of their wedding. She told her Aunt Mary before she left that she was getting married. Aunt Mary did not get along with Richard and so told Doreen that she would never forgive her husband and that she would get even with him. Doreen thought she was joking and so left not long after thinking nothing of the remark.
Doreen and Richard married at roughly 12:30 at the registry office in Wellington that day.
After the wedding Doreen returned to her Aunt Mary’s house and told her that she was now married. Aunt Mary then suggested they go and celebrate, so Doreen, Aunt Mary and Aunt Mary’s daughter in law (Cedric’s wife) took a taxi into Wellington where they met a friend Mrs Irene Bush at a hotel. They all consumed a few drinks to celebrate the wedding once Irene had arrived. They left the hotel at roughly 6pm and went back to Daniell Street before returning to Wellington wharf. Doreen had received a letter from her mother in Hokitika saying that she was ill and so Doreen had arranged to leave Wellington that afternoon to visit her. I’m assuming she went back to her Aunt’s to collect some things for her trip. Doreen met her new husband Richard at the wharf after he had finished work.
Richard had already met Aunt Mary, having lived in the house after returning from service overseas. Aside from moving back to live with his parents it also appeared that he left as he and Aunt Mary had some difficulties. Sometime in March, before Richard and Doreen married he had telephoned the Daniell Street residence to speak with Doreen but ended up talking to Mary. Apparently Mary was annoyed because she didn’t want Doreen to go anywhere with Richard. A couple of minutes later he arrived at the house. Mary met him at the door and they had words. I’m not sure if Doreen was able to go with Richard that day but Richard no longer visited the house again until the wedding.
Once Doreen had been dropped off at the ferry to go south, the same taxi driver took Mary, Mary’s daughter in law, their friend Irene and Richard back to Daniell Street. On the way home they collected a carton of beer.
This is where things start to get murky and everyone’s version of events change frequently. On arrival at Daniell Street they all went into the living room where Mary’s husband was, although he left shortly afterwards to go to bed as he wasn’t well. Richard opened up the carton of beer and they all started drinking. Everyone seemed to be having a good time with Richard and Mary, even discussing going to a shooting party one weekend soon (Mary was a keen shooter for sport and hunting) A gun was pulled out and Richard and Mary were inspecting it. Irene supposedly at this time decided it was time for her to leave so Richard apparently walked her to the front door. She would however later return.
At about 8pm a doctor was called to the Daniell Street residence. Upon arrival he found Richard lying on a bed with a bullet wound in his abdomen. Richard was in a critical condition so an ambulance was quickly sent for. Mary was telling the doctor that it had been an accident and was pointing to a rifle in the bedroom. The police were called and just before they arrived Irene came back to the house.
The police arrived around 10:40pm and began questioning the people in the house. Mary was very confusing and gave different versions of events. At first she said he had been shot in the bedroom but when the police officer couldn’t find any blood she changed and said he was shot in the living room where her husband was sleeping. He couldn’t find any blood in the living room either so moved around the house and eventually found blood stained blankets in the bathtub. When he asked Mary again where Richard had been shot, she said in the bedroom. When asked where the firearm that caused Richards injuries was she said it was on a chair in the sitting room (it wasn’t) it was eventually found by another officer behind a door in the living room. Mary became very hostile and refused to tell the police anything further of what had happened saying “I will tell you flat-foots nothing” Keeping in mind they had all supposedly had a lot to drink. The doctor however would later say that Mary seemed quite sober when he had arrived and talked to her.
The police left the house and headed to the hospital to try and talk to Richard but found he was in the operating theatre. They went back to the Daniell Street residence and tried to interview everyone in the house again, however Mary was having none of it and had to be restrained saying “The police are a bloody lot of flat-foots and I will tell them nothing” she also said “It serves the bastard right, he should have gone south with his wife tonight”
The doctor at the hospital examined Richard and found the bullet had entered the abdomen and passed through several internal organs and had lodged at the side of the vertical column. He was suffering from severe shock and internal haemorrhage. The doctor asked him frequently how he had received his injury but he received no answer. The doctor believed this was from shock and not because he was trying to hide or protect anyone. Richard was treated for shock and then operated on. The bullet was not extracted at that stage.
After surgery his condition was still not good although the doctor stated that he did improve a little over the next few days although never enough to make a deposition in court. Richard was allowed to see relatives and on two occasions, detectives were allowed to see him but they were all told not to stay too long as it would exhaust him.
Two detectives visited Richard on the 8th of May to ask him if he could tell them how he came by his injuries. He started by telling them about Mary verbally abusing him about marrying Doreen and not telling anyone. He didn’t take much notice as he knew she had been drinking a lot of liquor. When the detectives asked Richard if him being shot was an accident Richard replied “It was deliberate alright. She went over to the door and asked me to turn around so she could shoot me for marrying Doreen” Richard didn’t turn around so Aunt Mary threatened him again saying he didn’t have the guts - at which point he turned around and she shot him immediately.
Richard said that the people in the room when this happened aside from himself and Mary was the daughter in law, Mary’s husband and Irene. He said that Irene was the first to come to his assistance. He tried to stagger outside so he could get to the hospital but says he collapsed on the lawn. He says he was left there until someone lifted him inside. While lying on the grass he said the daughter in law was talking to him but at some stage left to go back inside. Mary’s husband was apparently too upset to do anything and Mary did not try to help him at all. He recalled hearing Mary running around asking him to say that it was an accident and that he would know what she’d get if anything happened (life imprisonment) Richard believed that Mary had every intention of shooting him because of what she had said earlier.
A court case was started against Mary Stuart Walker (Aunt Mary) for attempted murder however on the morning of the 5th of June 1944 Richard collapsed and remained unconscious until 10:30pm when he passed away. The charge was then changed from attempted murder to murder.
Doreen had come back to Wellington and was staying in Johnsonville. She was visited by her other Aunt, Mrs Butterworth from Karori. She never went into detail about what happened but she also ended up in hospital. Her back and legs were hurt and claimed that Mrs Butterworth did it because Doreen had said that what had happened was no accident. Mrs Butterworth denied this in court. Doreen went on to claim that she was worried about her relatives as some of them had threatened her. They were telling her not to say anything about it and that someone would put a curse on her. She refused to give the name of the person threatening her as she said she deserved it for lying. Poor Doreen. Her story changed a lot and she seemed to be under a lot of pressure from relatives.
Irene had told police that she had left the house and then returned after the shot was fired even though Richard had said she was in the room when he was shot. She also claimed that she was starting to receive threats from an unknown person. She said that she had received many phone calls and she was getting quite annoyed. One such phone call was someone saying “This is Dick Chorley ringing from the grave and if you don’t tell the truth I’ll haunt you” It was later told that Irene had been seen drinking with one of the police who had visited the house to question everyone. I’m not sure if this was made up to discredit Irene or if it actually happened. You can form your own opinion on that one.
Eventually Doreen confirmed that her Duncan relatives were threatening her including her own father. They were telling her that if she said anything against her Aunt Mary then her father would get even with her and that they would have nothing to do with her. Even Richard’s relatives were threatening her, with Mrs Chorley (Richard’s mother) being the one who said they would put a curse on her.
The police also had their hands full when it came to getting statements from everyone. Everyone’s stories all changed a lot especially from Irene who originally said she left before the shot was fired (she later claimed she was there like Richard had said,, then changed her story again to say she wasn’t) even Mr Walker (Aunt Mary’s husband) changed his story at first he said he never heard a shot being fired and then later he changed his story saying he did hear it fired but since he was on the lavatory he didn’t know who had shot it. The daughter in law never seemed to say much (or at least I can’t find any record of it) but it appears that she claimed not to hear any shot being fired and she was also very unwell (I’m assuming after consuming lots of liquor)
There was also some trouble with the weapon that was used. It appeared that it had been given a good clean after the shot was fired as there were no fingerprints on the rifle. This led the police to believe that someone had wiped it clean because they had something to hide.
Mary was causing quite a lot of frustration by refusing to cooperate and answer most questions from the police. She denied a lot of statements made by others including what Richard had said during his interview with police while he was in hospital saying that she had deliberately shot him. A lot of the time her answer to questions were “I refuse to answer the question on the grounds that I might incriminate myself” She also said that she objected to the police entering the house to interview everyone (when they had to restrain her) because by that stage her son had come home and was in bed with her daughter in law and as far as she knew they did not have a warrant so they had no right to enter the house.She did admit to being quite used to handling firearms and that she had done quite a good deal of shooting with a rifle in the past.
Mary was claiming that she wouldn’t tell the police what had happened that night because she couldn’t remember anything. She supposed the reason she had a lapse of memory in regards to the accident was because she was under the influence of liquor. She went on to say that she has had lapses of memory in the past when she has been under the influence of liquor.
On the 10th of July 1944 the case was dismissed. The judge thought there was no real evidence, especially as the four people who were in the house when the shot was fired didn’t recall hearing a shot being made (odd because even if it was an accident wouldn’t they have heard the shot? Too much liquor maybe…)
The coroner was forced to leave an open verdict and was only able to say that the bullet wound ultimately causing death was shot at a distance and could not have been self-inflicted. They were also convinced that some of the witnesses were lying. His words on the matter were “I find, therefore that the deceased died at the Wellington Public Hospital on June 5 1944, the cause of death being a gunshot wound in the upper abdomen received by him on May 4 1944 the said wound not having been self-inflicted”
Richard was laid to rest in St John’s Churchyard in Trentham, Upper Hutt.
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