SCHOOLBOY MURDERED.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 287, 2 December 1911, Page 17

SCHOOLBOY MURDERED.

The main street of the village of Buntingford, about seven miles from Boyston, in Hertfordshire, was the scene of an extraordinary tragedy early on Tuesday afternoon, October 17. Just before two o'clock I the village childrel were trooping through : the High Street, on their way to the National School, and among them were two brothers, George and James Hitch, five and seven years of age respectively. Suddenly, , from a bouse near by. a woman was seen !to ran. Dashing into the middle of the knot of boys she caught little George Hitch round the neck ad before anyone could get to her hacked at his throat with a tableknife. Mr. Graves, a tailor, of Buntingford, bearing the screams of the other children, ran to the woman, snatched the boy away from her, nnd called for help. Another man ran to his assistance, the knife was wrested from her, nnd the police' sent . fox. Meanwhile her victim was hurried to Dr. Fell's surgcrly, but life was already extinct. The boy, who had sustained a terrible wound in the throat, bis bend being practically severed, wns the son of a carpenter living in Norfolk-road. At the police station the woman gave her name as Mary 80-My, nnd her age as 65. Enquiries In the village elicited the information that she Is of eccentric habits, and only as recently as September last was discharged from prison, whcr« she had i served a three months' sentence for causing I grievous bodily harm to another boy. On this occasion she is alleged to have caught a boy named Ward and to have thrown him over a bridge into the River Ribb, whence he was rescued by his playmates. A curious feature of the e n = c is that the boy Ward is cousin to the murdered boy flitch, but a "Morning Lender" representative. nitfVing enquiries in the village that evening, could end no grounds for ■s-ispcctlne thi-> to lie nnytl'ing but coln'-ilence. Tbe woman Poddy, it is stnted, was charged some nire •cars n-o with attempting to cut her hnsbnnd's throat, ami was bound over; and In ions she attempted sui'-ide. A little, grnyhnired woman, she I* tbe mother of a lartre family of vrown-rn si>ni. No possible motive for the crime is known, is sfio mixed very little ln the life of the village, and is believed not to have known the parents of the boy. At tbe Inquest of p.untlngford the jury returned a Verdict of "Wilful murder" against Mary Roddy, who is In custody. ■