ATTEMPTED MURDER.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIX, Issue 211, 3 September 1908, Page 3

ATTEMPTED MURDER.

IN EXTRAORDINARY CRIME. FIENDISH ATTACK BY UNKNOWN ME>\ One of the most extraordinary and altogether inexplicable attempts to commit murder is now being investigated' by the Criminal Investigation Department of Victoria.

The victim is Mr. Henry Hennett, an old, feeble and helpless man, aged 79 years, who for 40 years has lived in a small four-roomed weatherboard house on the bank of the river at lvew, just opposite the .Shamrock Brewery. He was attacked with devilish ferocity by some unknown criminals who endeavoured to smash his skull in while he was sleeping, and then threw garbage over his senseless bod'-v.

Just before daylight, Mr. James Kitson, of "Vioung-street, Kew, was awakened by a knock at his door, and upon opening it was horrified to s ee the old man tottering at the door step, streaming with 'blood that rilled down over his white hair from dreadful wound's on his iorehead. " They have been trying to kill mc," he gasped. The old man was at once taken inside and interrogated. He could not' say who bad tried to kill him, for he did.i not know; he had seen nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing. All he knew was that he had awakened with a dull, agonising pain in his head, and he had found himself streaming with blood. The dripping, gaping wounds made it plain that he had been subjected to terrible treatment.

At the hospital. Dr. Shaw, who admitted Hennett, found that his injuries were of a most serious nature. There was a compound depressed fracture of the frontal bojie above the left temple and another { jj : ep wound above the right temple, besides numerous cuts, contusions and bruises, the effects of the blows showered down upon the old man's defenceless head.

The story told by Mr. Henp.ett is that ho lay down on his bed with is clothes on about midnight. He had a lamp beside him, and he wa s loading a newspaper. He heard a clock strike one, and then he turned down the lamp, leaving it burning low, and went to sleep. He knew nothing more till he woke, between two an* thrro o'clock, with his head aching and blooding. He had been attacked while asleep, and knew nothing, but felt sure, when hp came to himself that somonne had tried to kill him. The wounds on his head proved that. Later in the day Detective Bear ami Constable Gleeson and' Sergeant Richardson, from Ke-.v. made an inspection of the premises. Outside the bedroom door, near by where the broken bludgeon had been found, they picked up a dirty white handkerchief, in which a piece of road metal, about Jib. in weight, had be«n tied. This was blood-stained, and had been used as a " sling-shot." On the floor, at the head of the bed, was another dreadful weapon —three-quarters of a brick tied in a large black handkerchief. A corner on the brick had worn a hole in the handkerchief showing that it had been used in the attempt to knock the old man's brains out. It needed little deductive logic to interpret the facts of the crime, though the motive of it was. and is still, veiled in obscurity. The door of the room had been burst in by murderous ruffians, who, without the loss of a second, set to work to batter in the helpless old man's skull while ho was asleep. They had left him for dead. Having compassed, as they thought, the death of their victim, the fiends capped their crime with an act which can only be accounted for upon the assumption that they must be criminal lunatics of a most abnormal type. They went outside, and lifting an ash bucket which was filled with ashes, rubbish and other garhage. threw the contents of it over the senseless form which they evidently thought was a corpse. This extraordinary proceeding adds to the puzzle of Hiis amazing outrage. Robbery was plainly not the motive of the crime, and the old man was harmless, uelplcss and inoffensive.

The sovereijms which "Mr. Hennett had in the house was money to which he was entitled from the sale of laad at Blackburn, wßich hadi at one time been his own. but which he had sequestrated to creditors of his estate. Usually he kept no money by him.