The Kaiapoi murders

Long before we became fascinated by the Arthur Allan Thomas case in Pukekawa and who fed the baby, there was another little child left alone with the bodies of his murdered parents.
James Frackleton Holland was an Irish immigrant who was a farmer. He had sold quite a bit of his land for a freezing works and he and wife Hilda Marion - called Marion - lived in a two-storey house near the southwestern side of the Kaiapoi River. They had one son, Cyril.
Marion was his second wife. He had five children with his first wife.
Both James and Marion were found dead in their home on May 12, 1916. Marion’s body was found inside the front door with a rope around her mouth while James was in a shed where he kept the horse trap also with a rope around his neck. Both ropes were cut and there was no suggestion they had been hanged.
James, who was 74, was found in a pool of blood with his right arm dislocated although his cause of death was a blow to the head.
Marion was much younger than James in her early 30s. It was believed she went to his aid and was hit on the head with a bar and died of a fractured skull.
Hilda appeared to have been killed in the yard and dragged into the house.
Her death was reported to police by an insurance agent who visited the house the next day finding the front door open. He knocked and a little boy answered. It was three-year-old Cyril, the couple’s son.
He saw Marion lying in the hallway and went no further.
Police ruled out suicide but could find no trace of a murderer. But the family cat dragged in a piece of blood-stained wrapping into the house and it led to the police finding the iron bar wrapped in brown paper and tied with string.
Which is odd. Why would the murderer not have taken the weapon with them?
Police were unable to find a motive for the killings.
There were plenty of theories. One was money. Holland drove to Christchurch the day before he died and withdrew over £1000 from a building society. He then cashed the cheque at a bank before taking it to Kaiapoi and put the money in a bank there.
But when he was found he still had £10 in his pocket. Police wondered if someone knew he had taken out the money and would still have it.
There was also a concern there was a sexual motive as Marion’s clothes were disturbed. But she had been dragged into the hallway which would have accounted for it.
It was possible they knew their murderer - no cry for help was heard from their home. A worker on the property though was mostly deaf and could barely speak and unable to help with investigations.
After months of investigations, police came up with nothing. Even offering a reward brought no new information.
Cyril was taken to a relative's house and both James and Marion were buried in the Kaiapoi Public Cemetery.​