MURDER TRIAL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 123, 27 May 1930, Page 9

MURDER TRIAL.

NEARING THE END. VERDICT THIS EVENING? r ADDRESSES TO JURY. MR- MEREDITH'S REPLY TO DEFENCE COUNSEL. I —— • QUESTION OF "OPPORTUNITY." It is expected that the verdict of the Jury in the trial of Arthur Thomas Munn on the charge of murdering his ■nife will be known some time this evening. ' In closing his address to the jury on behalf of Munn, Mr. E. H. Northcroft, after speaking for a full day yesterday and from ten o'clock till ten minutes to' twelve to-day, said, "Gentlemen, justice does not require a victim. You are not called upon to say, "Here is a highly suspicious occurrence. There is a possibility, a strong probability, that Munn las committed the crime of which he stands charged.' However strong the suspicion may be, it does not justify you in offering a victim for some wrong which justice claims has been done. In this case there is a total absence of evidence that Munn administered poison to his wife or did anything of the sort." Mr. Meredith, in his reply, contended that Munn was the only person who had the opportunity to poison his wife, and the only one who had a motive, and that he did have a motive. "She Died of Strychnine." J

Mr. Meredith, in replying, said that Munn was faced -with, a most serious charge, and it was only right that there should he no douht in the minds of the jury that the case had heen proved beyond all reasonable doubt, if they were to find a verdict of guilty. "I do not intend to traverse the whole of the evidence, but I propose to touch upon some matters, and I trust I will do so fairly, not with any idea of inflaming you against Munn, but only to endeavour to help you in finding whether Munn was responsible for the death of his wife. 'It is quite clear that Mrs. Munn died of strychnine poisoning. Having eliminated that, the next question is: How did she come by it? There are three possibilities. She may have taken it by accident, she may have taken it herself, or it may have been administered to her. I think we can eliminate the possibility of accident. Now we come to the second, that she took it herself. I flunk we can take it that she had strychnine on February 4 and February 11. Could it be suggested Mrs. Munn took strychnine for the purpose of suicide? They had the evidence of the agonies a person went through, and could it be considered that a person who had once experienced the terrors and agonies would ever dream of 'going through it again? There were her letters, showing that she was happy, no suggestion that she was unhappy, morbid, and had any thought of suicide. If suicide was eliminated, what else was left? "Grotesque Suggestion.* 7

The suggestion that Mrs. Munn was taking strychnine because of pregnancy was grotesque, because it was shown that Mrs. Munn was not pregnant. Did the jury think that any woman was going to take strychnine in connection with a pregnancy which did not exist? There was the letter written to her mother, saying she,thought she was suffering from blood pressure. Could, she have written taat letter if she had taken strychnine, and would she not know the cause of the agonies she was suffering? Within a few minutes of taking the poison she would experience all its terrors. Could the jury conceive her experiencing all this and then taking further doses, and finally a fatal dose? If suicide was eliminated then the only conclusion to be arrived at was that someone gave strychnine to her. "Munn Had the Opportunity."

Who had the opportunity ?—The answer must be Munn. Who was the only adult in the house beside her? Munn. Who waited upon her? Munn. Who served her with food? Munn. Who gave her her medicine? Munn. There were friendly neighbours ready to render assistance, but they were not allowed to assist. It might be an unfortunate circumstance for Munn that he ordered that no women were to be allowed to see her. Under the guise of keeping visitors away, practically everyone was kept away. Munn, then, was the only one who had the Opportunity, and the only one who had the motive. It was quite clear Munn had tired of his wife, she had ceased to satisfy his intellectual demands. He advertised in the "Star' and got into touch with another woman. There was also the evidence that he had ill-treated his wife.

When they found a woman dying of strychnine poisoning, and her husband the only one with the opportunity of administering it, then they had to' inquire into the relations between the man and his wife. Munn had tired of his wife, had ill-treated her, had entered into an affair with another woman. Having tired of his wife and become infatuated with another woman, the suggestion was that he then became possessed by the thought of getting rid of his wife" With his wife lying ill, Munn rushed off to the city to be with Mrs- Stuck, rushed to" °ret letters from her at the Takapuna P. 0., leaving his wife and two children in the house. That showed he was infatuated with the other woman. Having eliminated accident and suicide, was there any other conclusion to be arrived at but" that Munn administered it? It was for the jury to decide. Munn had purchased the strychnine openly, but it would have been fatal to his case had it been found that Munn had purchased . it and given a wrong name. Calling the Doctor. It had been stressed that Munn had gone for the doctor when Mrs. Munn had her first turn. It was obviously the only thing he could have done. He dared not let her. die without calling the doctor, because he would well know that if there were no doctor attending her there would be a post-mortem .examination. Munn had sent a message to Dr. Duckling to come and see his wife on- the Thursday. That was one of h ; s wife's good days, because she had had no strychnine that day. On the Friday Mrs. Munn had an attack of convulsions and was in awful pain, but Munn that day did not call the doctor, but the following day he told the doctor she was getting along well, so long as-.she had quiet/ It was clear that when Dr. Dud-'

ding called on the first occasion he was not told of the symptoms of Mrs. Munn which Munn must have witnessed. "Was that the action of a man generally concerned about the health of his wife and wishful for her recovery? Relations With Mrs. Stuck. Could the jury believe Munn's evidence of his relations with Mrs. Stuck? It was significant that Munn had agreed with all the witnesae* up to a point where it nurt him, and then his evidence came into conflict with them. The girls who had been with Munn all their lives, so soon as they came of an age when they could do something for themselves, had left him to go back to their own mother, the "wicked" woman described by Munn in the witness box. So much for the "wicked" mother, that his own children preferred her to their father. Munn, it had been shown, had told this "wicked" wife of his that he was off to Wellington, but instead he had gone to 'Frisco, and a warrant had been taken out for his arrest.

"The failure of the Crown to call the evidence of the two children was referred to by Mr. Northcroft," said Mr. Meredith, "but my friend knows that we did not intend to call the little children to giv© evidence in a case in which their own father was charged with murder. But, while we did not call them, we had them here for the defence to call, did they desire to do so." Conflict at Material Points. Continuing his address this afternoon, Mr. Meredith referred to the conflict of evidence between Munn's son and two daughters, and Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Gill, when compared with Munn's own evidence, and emphasised that it always conflicted in those important points when it injured Munn. Munn was also in conflict at material points with Dr. Dudding and the police. Munn had sworn that Dr. Dudding had indicated the possibility of Mrs. Munn having to go to the hospital, but Dr. Dudding himself declared that he never entertained a thought of sending her to the hospital, and that he considered the case a good on© for treatment in her own home.

Again there was the question of the convulsions. Dr. Dudding did not know what was wrong with Mrs. Munn. It would be impossible for Munn to 6ay he had been fair with Dr. Dudding on important points. He admitted part of the doctor's evidence, but was in conflict on a vital point. The arching of the back, the rigidity, was the one thing that would strike Dr. Dudding. Munn had never said anything on this point

which mattered, and that was very significant. Also Munn was in conflict with the evidence of Mr. Johnston, chemist. He contradicted the police officers on matters of moment. The defendants were trained to take a particular note at the time, noi to trust to memory. Munn had read and signed the statements produced by the detectives, and it should be remembered that when the police embarked upon the inquiry it had every appearance of being a case of suicide. .