PLEA FOR LIFE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 286, 2 December 1936, Page 9

PLEA FOR LIFE.

SYDNEY MURDERER. AGED WOMAN'S DEATH. STORY OF BRUTAL CRIME. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, November 26.

New South Wales, having the largest population of all the States and possessing also the greatest city, has a high yearly average of violent crimes to its discredit, and recently it has in ' this respect lived well up to its unenviable reputation. But though many of these crimes have been perpetrated with great brutality efforts are frequently made to assist the criminals to evade the just penalty of their misdeeds. v

Within the past few days an attempt has been made* on the usual humanitarian grounds, to save. the life of Maurice Auld (27'), a labourer, who was convicted of murdering Mary Deas (70) on May 13 last.

Mrs. Deas was a widow living alone in a small shack on the edge of the bush near Werrawee, some 20 miles north of Sydney. Though poor, she was well liked and respected in the neighbourhood, and general horror was expressed when she was found battered to death in her hut. The police, following various clues, searched for Auld, who had known Mrs. Deas for some years, and found him hiding in a cave a few miles away. When he was arrested he made a statemen to the police admitting that he had attacked Mrs. Deas with the object ot robbing her, but that he had no intention of killing her, and at their request he agreed to go with them to her hut and to "reconstruct" the crime. According to Auld's story, he knocked at Mrs. Deas' door on the evening .ot May 13 and asked her for some money. When she refused he struck her with his fist and knocked her down, and as she lav on the floor trying to protect her head from his blows he seized one of her shoes and beat her into unconsciousness. He then took £5 10/ that he found in the

hut—probably all the money that the old woman possessed—arid left ber lying there. She was found by neighbours, and was taken to hospital, but she had sustained such dreadful injuries to her head and face that on May 27 she died. Guilt Frankly Admitted. There was not the least doubt as to who -was the perpetrator of this peculiarly callous and brutal crime, for Auld frankly admitted his guilt from the first. All that he could say by way of extenuation was that he was sorry, that he had never meant to kill Mrs. Deas, but that he had been drinking for some days before, and that he must have been "out of his mind" when he struck the fatal blows. But the jury evidently contained a considerable percentage of men anxious to evade the responsibility of "voting a man's life away," and they took five hours to make up their minds. They returned to Court after two hours to ask whether "if no premeditation were shown in the killing" the accused would be guilty of murder, if he had displayed no regard for the life of the person attacked.

Mr. Justice Maxwell answered in the affirmative, and though fortified with this opinion, the jury took three hours more for deliberation before they brought in a verdict of murder. But even then they tried to weaken their verdict by adding to it a recommendation to niercy.

It is not easy to see on what grounds] this rider couki be justified, particularly as the Crown prosecutor, in stating the case against Auld, urged that the jury "should not abandon its oa-th or its common sense to temporise with a verdict of manslaughter." Ministers Declined to Interfere. However, when Mr. Justice Maiwell pronounced the death sentence, he told Auld that the jury's recommendation "would be forwarded to the proper quarter, and that promise has been kept. But when Auld's case came up for consideration by the Ministers, they declined to interfere. It should be said, however, that when the jurors were considering their verdict, they knew lj.tle or nothing of Auld's previous and, according tc +he police, this man's record is a very bad one.

Auld is described in the police files as a hobo or nomad, living at various places in ttie bush along the North

Shore line, and he had the reputation of being "a very violent man on other people's property, and a menace to society." He has been under the observation of the police since 1926, and in 1933 he was declared a habitual criminal.

It is a significant fact that thi3 penalty was remitted later by the Court of Criminal Appeal, and kindhearted people are once more appealing for further leniency to this man, who now stands self-convicted of a singularly ferocious and cruel crime.

It is true that Auld's demeanour in Court—his apparent indifference to the proceedings, his cheerful smile to acquaintances, and his undisturbed apathy after sentence of death m? passed, may suggest reasonable doubts about his mental condition. But "° evidence was put before the Court to surest that he is anything but a lowTrade criminal, with brutal propensities, and if social life in a civilised community' is to remain possible, decent men and women must be protected against sanguinary ruffianism of this kind by the only decisive and effective nieaii3 within our reach.