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three weeks. About 9 o'clock in the evening of the 24th inst, deceased went to bed when the
rest of the family retired for the night. Between 1 and 2 o'cldck in the morning of the 25th inst...'
Kuriah Trewin: 'I heard a door open and someone go out of doors. I spoke to my husband and
said, "Who can it be that is gone out?" William Trewin: 'My wife asked me to light a candle.'
Kuriah Trewin: 'I then got up and found the room occupied by my late niece, Rhoda Mountjoy,
empty. I went in search for her, and I then went back and called my husband.' William Trewin:
'I went in search but could not find her. I then alarmed my son and daughter. We all searched
the place around. We then went to the dam, about 200 yards distant from the house. We found
no trace of her there then. I then sent for assistance. I then went again to the dam and this time I
found her hat on the edge of the dam in the water. I then sent word to the police.1
Thomas Pearse: 'I was called on the morning of the 25th inst about 3 o'clock am to go in search
of deceased. I went in company with Mr Trewin and his son to the dam. About 9 o'clock am
the body was found. I searched for the body with a rake.' Roderick McLeod: 'I am overseer on
Mr Mitchell's station. I was called by Mrs Howard on the morning of the 25th inst about 7
o'clock. I came up to the dam near Mr Trewin's house and made search in the dam as I was
told that a young woman named Rhoda Mountjoy was missing. I searched until nearly 9 o'clock
am and then I found her in the dam, about the middle of the dam in the deepest water, about
twenty yards from the bank in about 9 feet of water. I got the body out.' Thomas Pearse: 'We
made a drag and so got the body to the bank.' Roderick McLeod: There were no marks of
violence on her body. I assisted to convey the body to Mr Trewin's house. She had on an
ordinary dress.'
William Trewin: "I never noticed anything peculiar in deceased's mind, and can assign no reason
for her committing such a rash act.' Kuriah Trewin: "She was always a quiet normal girl.'
Thomas Pearse: 'I have known deceased since childhood, and never noticed anything peculiar
about her.'
Tom Pearse was 39 that year; the Trewins were in their early 70's. Their unmarried son, William
Lawrence Trewin, was 28, and their unmarried daughter, Annie Maria, was a few years older.
Evidently none of those involved could swim, and they had some difficulty in locating the body
and bringing it to the bank. But why were the Trewins, father and son, incapable of doing this
themselves, and so dependant on the assistance of their neighbours?
One can picture the scene: the women in the farmhouse, shocked and silent, remembering the
last things Rhoda said, how she had seemed, and when they had last seen her and what they
had said themselves. And the hat - she had put her hat on before going out in the middle of the
night to kill herself. Outside, the dawn; the awakening of birds and farmhouse animals; the
fractured routine of the farm that cold autumnal morning. And later at the dam, its wide waters
deepened perhaps by recent rain, the small bundled body in a
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sodden muddy dress, beset with flies, lying on the trampled earth. Then the mounted procession
to the farmhouse; the necessity of removing the wet clothes, of drying the body, and laying it out
in a fresh new dress on a bed for the magistrate to see. This was done by Granny Pearse.
Rhoda Mountjoy's body was carried in a buggy that afternoon to Eohuca for a post-mortem,
which was performed by Doctor Eakins. He found that 'the body was well nourished, and the
various organs healthy. The young women was not pregnant.'
All these events took place before her father, Caleb, and other family members of the Mountjoy
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