WOMAN'S DEATH

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 135, 10 June 1942, Page 6

WOMAN'S DEATH

SOLDIER CHARGED MANSLAUGHTER ALLEGED (P.A.) WELLINGTON, this day. After hearing the case in which David Waitoa, aged 40, a soldier and labourer, was charged with committing manslaughter by killing Maude Purcell, Mr. A. N. Goulding, S.M., said that in his view there was a clear case for the accused to answer of having accelerated death. Waitoa pleaded not guilty both to manslaughter and to assaulting Hori Paapa Tupe so as to cause him actual bodily harm. He was committed for trial on both charges, bail being fixed at £100 witn two sureties of £150 eacn. The evidence related to a fight in a house in Boulcott Street on May '.iO, and Dr. Mi'ums, house surgeon at the Wellington Hospital, gave details of the woman's injuries when she was admitted

Dr. Lynch, who conducted the post-mortem, said there was a large diffuse and stale collection of blood beneath the thick covering membrane of the brain, and a more recent blood clot. He had been told that the woman was a patient at the hospital about four months ago with some obscure cerebral complaint, and he thought it likely that the elder and larger portion of the subdural haemorrhage was present at that time. The external injuries were consistent with her having been struck with a clenched fist and having fallen on the back of her head. It was the fresh haemorrhage that caused death.

In cross-examination he said that neither the injury to the right eye nor the injury to the back of the head would be likely to cause death in a normal person. Tupe, in cross-examination after his evidence, said he had heard Mrs. Purcell was known as Mrs. Waitoa, but did not know she was getting Waitoa's allotment from the army.