MURDER TRIAL BEGINS

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23080, 24 July 1940, Page 10

MURDER TRIAL BEGINS

WOMAN’S DEATH AT

WAIKINO

CROWN’S CASE OUTLINED

(PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.)

AUCKLAND, July 23.

The jury having yesterday visited the scene of the tragedy at Waikino, 140 miles from Auckland, the trial was begun in the Supreme Court to-day, before Mr Justice Fair, of Douglas Herbert Cartman, aged 22, a mine trucker, of Waihi, on a charge of murdering Elizabeth Agnes Hamilton. Mr V. E. Meredith, in his opening address for the Crown, said that the case had attracted painful interest throughout the Dominion. Mrs Hamilton was aged 27, of stout build, weighing 12 stone. She v;as married in 1935, and for three years before the tragedy was employed as a cook at the Waikino Hotel. Her husband had enlisted and went into camp immediately after the outbreak of war. Until then he and his wife lived in their own home at Waikino, but when the husband went to camp the wife resided at the hotel, and when on leave the husband stopped there also. On the date of the tragedy he was in Auckland Hospital, and subsequently underwent an appendix operation. Another employee at the hotel was Miss. Shaw, and it was customary for her to join Mrs Hamilton on evening walks. Lloyd Moran, aged 15, the son of the proprietor of the hotel, often accompanied them. Mr Meredith described five miles of the main road between Waikino and Waihi, also a side road known as the Waitawheta road. Cartman was familiar with that road, having worked for a farmer there, added Mr Meredith. Cartman owned a three-seater car which he bought from a dealer in December. Both lamps were then intact, and among the tools were two tyre levers. On one of these levers discussion would be detailed later.

Boy’s Body Found

On the evening of the tragedy Mrs Hamilton and Lloyd Moran went for a walk. When they had not returned by 1 a.m., the Moran family, Miss Shaw, and a neighbour, Mr Cooper, began to search. At daylight Mr Moran crossed the Awaroa bridge, about 12 chains from the hotel, leading to Waitawheta road, and. looking down a steep bank, saw the body of his son. He returned to the hotel and summoned the Waihi police. The boy was dead, a severe wound on the left side of the forehead exposing the brain tissue. The surface of an old quarry nearby had been disturbed as if there had been a struggle. A shoe worn by Mrs Hamilton was found there. Near disturbed ground were four large patches of heavy bloodstains connected by a light trail of blood. Mr Meredith said that Mrs Hamilton’s body was found four miles further along the Waitawheta road, towards Waihi, practically naked, in low scrub and fern. Photographs had been taken showing the rtate of nudity. There was the strongest suggestion of outrage. A bloodstained tyre lever was lying alongside the head. In the course of an extensive search for the car concerned, Cartman’s car was examined, in addition to many others. His car had the right headlamp missing and the front apron badly buckled. What appeared to be a fatty substance was adhering, to the front bracket, and stains that looked like blood stains were on the dickey seat. Cartman said the headlamp was broken a week before while driving on the Tauranga road. He said he had given one tyre lever to a Maori and had lost the other.

Interviewed again on May 1, Cartman, after being told what evidence had been found on the car, said: “I will tell you the truth. I have been worrying about what I did. If I had not had so much drink it would not have happened.” He then made a further statement, said Mr Meredith, stating that he ran over both Mrs Hamilton and the boy, his suggestion being that both were killed outright.

Cause of Death

Mr Meredith said it would be shown that without the head injuries, which were apparently caused by a tyre lever, the woman would have had a slight chance of recovery, and would have

survived at least 24 to 48 hours. Ac*-* cording to the medical evidence thfc head injuries caused death. * In his second statement Cartman hat)* suggested that he was drunk, buthei could not have been very drunk to have* lifted a heavy woman in and out of tht; car, and also to have lifted a big boy ; into the dickey seat. ' „ Mr Meredith concluded his outline of the Crown’s case before the luncheon adjournment. .Lance-Corporal Frederick William Hamilton, husband of the dead woman, in evidence, said he was in hospital with appendicitis on the night of April 2.

The former licensee of the Waikino Hotel, John Joseph Moran, said he first ■ became anxious about his son, Lloyd, and Mrs Hamilton, about 11 o'clock at night. After midnight he and others began a search, without result; but about daylight a dog indicated to him where his son was lying over a bank.* Constable W. C. Harper, of Waihi,’* told of the finding of the body of, Lloyd Moran, fully clothed, with’ thm exception of the left shoe. He noted! bloodstains, and at various spots He* picked up a handkerchief, two women’s white canvas shoes, a pair of damaged spectacles, and pieces of broken glass from the head-lamp of a car. When witness examined the accused’s car later, he noticed that the right headlamp glass and bulb were missing, and found a stain on the cushion of the dickey seat. He saw minute quantities of a fatty substance and of hair about the car.

The hearing of the Crown’s evidence will be resumed to-morrow.