BEATEN TO DEATH.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 162, 11 July 1910, Page 4

BEATEN TO DEATH.

. THE MELBOURNE ____GED_*. SUICIDE OIF- THE ASSAILANT. ___ajBOORNvEs Monday. A shocking domestic tragedy , occurred ; at Newport yesterday, Alice Carter, the I 11-year-old daughter oi •Constable Carter, being beaten to death iby her aunt, Teresa Carter, who then suicided. Constable Carter had no reason to suppose that his children were not receiving kind and considerate treatment from his cousin, and the facts" revealed to him by his daughter Margaret to-day concerning the home life of the children were stunning. The girl stated that ■the housekeeper struck Alice on two or three occasions with a wooden pot-stick on Saturday morning, and sent her to bed. At about 1 o'clock this morning Margaret Carter states that she saw the housekeeper get up out of bed, catch Alice by the throat, shake her two or three times, and then deliberately bite her on the arms. The child then huddled down among the bed-clothe 3 and smothered her sobs. After breakfast the two other girls went to church, and shortly after their return Margaret found the woman with a strap around her neck, gasping for ihreath. She loosened the strap, but the woman pulled it tight again. The girl then ran for her father, who was on duty. He rushed to his home, and in the shed at the rear found his cousin lying on the broad of her hack in an unconscious state, with the strap tied tightly around her neck. Having loosened the strap, his attention was called by his daughter Margaret .to the deceased, and he was •horrified to find that she was quite dead. He saw that she had been cruelly beaten, her little body "being black with bruises.

The woman was removed to the hospital, where later in the day, during a temporary return to consciousness, she stated that on Saturday afternoon she discovered that deceased had been guEty of telling untruths, and in her temper she seised a potstick—a piece of broom 'handle, about _ft. long—and gave the child a severe beating, so severe that the child had to go to bed. This morning she again beat the child, who to her terror and despair sank hack unconscious. At .about midday the beaten child expired. She then became /more terrified, and running out to the shed first took a quantity of spirits of salts, and then tried to choke herself with a small strap. She died at noon on Monday.