Police Constables William Prewitt and Henry Lock approached a group of half a dozen people who were sitting around their fires. Prewitt claimed to have shot Padlulta in self-defence. Schurmann provides a contrasting account demonstrating Padlulta’s defencelessness and that the policemen ran away leaving Padlulta helpless and dying.
(See 'The South Australian Frontier and its Legacies' for more details.)