MIDNIGHT MURDER.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 70, 21 March 1908, Page 13

MIDNIGHT MURDER.

j WOMAN'S DEATH SHRIEK MISTAKEN FOE OWL'S HOOT. ESSEX SENSATION. ] When the Lord Chief Justice, in address- j' ing the grand jnry at Esses Assizes. | Cbelmsford on Friday 3. said, referring j to a charge of wife murdpr preferred j against Charles Garnham. "The most curi- I ous part of the wnole affair is the complete absence of motive," he was but expressing the opinion of everyone who had devoted any attention to the case. The facts were comparatively simple. Garnham. who is employed as a horseman at a farm at Lexden, near Colchester. Jived j happily with his wife, as even tue prosecution had candidly to admit. On the night of November 2, said counsel for the Crown ' (Mr. IJohler. K.C.), Garnham and his wife spent several hours in the Crown public-) house. Lesden. According to the. landlady, I the woman hiid only one brittle, of stoat, j and her hushand two pints of beer and some bread and cheese. There was singing, dancing, and concertina playing. They left for their home at 11 o'clock. (They had to go along a narow lane, and ! through a glove of fir trees. At midnight a woman's shriek was heard from this spot. [During the Po:ice Court proceedings a ' J witness told how he heard this shriek, but j I thought it was the hoot of an otvl, several j of which haunted the lane.] 1" i Next morning Garnham went to his em- j' j plover, Mr. Hedge, and told him that he ' j awoke aud found his wife dead in bt?d. with ' I two black eyes. The farmer found the woman on the bed. fully dressed, and with ,' terrible injuries. There were two wounds ! over the eyes, bruises on the face, and be- j ! bind the ears, and a fracture cf the skull. I The arms were discoloured, and there were ' I numerous bruises on the hips aud the . shins. Sis of her ribs had been broken. The I position of her clothes suggesred that she I had been dragged upstairs. There were j wheelbarrow marks leading from the lane (to the cottage door. Thp proseeurinn eoutended that Garnham j' killed his wife in the laae. wheeled her home iv a wheelbarrow, and dragged her npstairs and on to the bed. Garuham had told the police that he left his wife downI stairs to take off some of her things. He I went to bed. and saw nothing more of her I until he found her dead by his side nest I morning. ; j Th,' medical evidence was to the effect ! 1 that it was impossible for the woman with : such injuries to get upstairs alone. The I injuries to the head corresponded with a.. I dog-nosed stick found ia prisoner's house, i. ' Great violence must have been used to I have caused the injuries. LOVEBS AFTLR TWENTY-TWO YEARS. ; Cross-examination of the witnesses sug- I gested that prisoner and his wife were the i worse for drink, and that the woman re- ■ ccived her injuries through repeated falls j in the lane, being wheeled iv a barrow, and ; then dragged upstairs. Several witnesses for the prosecution ' spoke of the affection prisoner had for his j j wife, ajid prisoners employer said he was : I a first-class workman, and a devoted bus- ■ j band. Both husband and wife were given ! to drink occasional.y. The lane, witness ! added, was only a watercourse, and he ! , never went down it at night without a lamp. Garnham's statements to the police were I, read. One was that his wife was in good !, heaith aud sober when he went to bed, and !, J that he was as innocent as a bube; while ' j a subsequent statement was that he knew ! nothing of what occurred, as they were J both the worse for drink. I The doctor said that ;>. pust-rnortem esj animation showed no signs of drink, but ] prisoner's agud father spoke of set-ing the I deceased drunk many times. Professor I'epper stated on Wednesday j that the deceaseds ribs were broken by i some direct force, and not by a fall from a ) wheelbarrow or downstairs. The injuries eouid not have b-en self-iuflietcd. Tne ' J bloodstains on the prisoner's clothes could i not have been produced by nose-bleeding. I The defence urged that without any rj.iar- ' rpl, provocation. orTfiotive. murder wa.-= alisolutely contrary to th? tenour of the ■ ' 'prisoner's lift. The prisoner aud his wife I were absolutely drunk, and 'he injuries : ' were, it was contended, accidentally sus- L tDined. Manslaughter was the only suggestion which could 1>... made. \ Iα his summing-up, the Lord Chief Jns- : rice said the previous conduct of Garnham ; ' I was strongly in his favour. Though people j j nowadays were rather foolishly sensitive ', about showing their affections, they had 1 heard of the genuine affection that existed ' j between this humble couple. They a.ways < : appeared remarkably happy, and it was a lj J pathetic fact that the prisoner used to '< : his wife even- morning when leaving ', The fact that after years of married life \\ I the man and the womau were stili hke ', | i lovers was most important. |. The jury found the prisoner "Guilty" o f '; J manslaughter, and he was sentenced to 12 • J years' penal servitude.