Detective’s Evidence At La Mattina Trial

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28447, 29 November 1957, Page 22

Detective’s Evidence At La Mattina Trial

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, November 28. Mr R. Hardie Boys, who is defending Angelo La Mattina in the Supreme Court at Wellington against a charge of murder, showed a prosecution witness on the fourth day of the trial today a bundle of notes amounting to £lOO, approximately the sum stated to be missing from the Garibaldi Club’s takings after the alleged crime. The witness, Senior-Detective Albert lan Knapp, agreed that it was “a considerable wad” for a man to carry. La Mattina, aged 23, a plumber, is alleged to have killed Angelo Odorico, caretaker of the Garibaldi Club, Wellington, on or about September 3.

The incident with the notes occurred after the witness had agreed with Mr Boys that there was no blood on the club’s till and no blood in the pocket of Odorico’s trousers, where the police found the keys of the locked till. The keys were half to two-thirds of the way down the pocket, the witness said. Asked if he had drawn the conclusion that the till had been robbed and the keys put back in the dead man’s pocket, the witness answered that he had drawn no conclusion. There was no blood on or in the wallet in Odorico’s hip pocket, the witness said. He agreed that when the police were investigating Odorico’s death they were looking for £lOO or for a way to account for £lOO that had been counted out in the club on September 2 by a club officer who

said there were three or four £5 notes and the rest in £1 or 10s notes. Mr Boys: That is a big wad of money, is it not? The witness: I think it would be an inch and a half across. Mr Boys then handed the witness a bundle of notes, with a request that he count it. Before he finished counting the money the witness agreed with Mr Boys that there were four £5 notes in it, 40 £1 notes and 80 10s notes. Mr Boys: It is a considerable wad to carry? The witness: Yes. Counsel then asked the witness to put the notes in Odorico’s wallet, which he did. Counsel then suggested that that was still a big bulge to carry round. Check on Movements The witness agreed with Mr Boys that the accused’s account of his movements about the time of Odorico’s death, so far as it could be checked with other witneeses, was correct. His account of the purchases was also correct. The witness’s evidence in chief was similar to his testimony in the Magistrate’s Court. He described the scene in the club when he went there after two members of the Garibaldi Club found Odorico dead there and telenhoned the police. The witness said he opened the till with a key on a bunch in a pocket of Odorico’s trousers, and found £2l Is 4d. All was silver and copper, except one £1 note. A money bag in the kitchen contained Ils, and a coat hanging up 13s Bd. In the trousers Odorico was wearing was 19s 6d. No other money could be found in the club.

The witness said that the police interviewed the accused on the night of September 6, and arrested him. when it was discovered during the interview that he was a prohibited immigrant. Next day he and another detective, having found that the accused’s palm print corresponded with one on an apparently bloodstained broken bottle in the club, interviewed the accused again, and told him that the police suspected that he had killed Odorico. He denied that.

Asked to explain his movements on September 3, the accused said he left the flat in Adams terrace at 5 p.m. and went to a fish shop in Courtenay, place, where he remained from 5.30 p.m. to 5.45 p.m. He called Anna Cerci’s aunt, but was told to ring her home at 7 p.m. He called from a public telephone near the Paramount Theatre, Courtenay place. Then he bought some peanuts and walked about the street, waiting for 7 o’clock. At 7 o’clock he telephoned Anna again, and asked her to come away with him that night. She would not, so he went home.

There he started painting the kitchen, because she was going to live there, and he wanted it to look nice. No-one was home, but one of the other occupants of the flat arrived at 1.45 a.m. He took the clothes to the dry cleaners next • morning because he and Anna intended to go to Auckland. Pathologists’ Evidence Most of today’s sitting was occupied with the evidence of the two pathologists, who were crossexamined at length. John David Reid, pathologist at the Wellington Public Hospital, said he found Odorico in a pool of blood in which were fragments of glass and some scattered olives. His clothing was extensively bloodstained and there were many blood spots around the room. In a spoon on the sink draining rack a clot of blood and hair was found. Odorico had apparently lived, though unconscious, for some hours after he had suffered the injuries, because there was evidence he had moved about the floor. Death had occurred from eight to 48 hours before the examination. The witness said he could see no way in which the wounds could have been self-inflicted. Cross-examined by Mr Boys, the witness agreed that Odorico’s skull was thinner than the average. He agreed that a single blow could produce more than one wound but would not agree that the wounds followed a line round the back of the head from ear to ear. Asked about a beer crate in the bar kitchen, the witness said it must have got into the position where he saw it after it had been spattered with Odorico’s blood. “Ten or More Blows” Philip Patrick Lynch, a pathologist, of Wellington, said he agreed with Dr. Reid that the splitting of the left ear and the near-by split in the scalp were caused by one blow. He considered there were 10 or more blows with a blunt weapon. He considered it possible that some of the star-shaped and other irregular splits could have been caused by overlapping blows. He was satisfied the injuries were caused by blows with two bottles, one of which was used till it broke. The other was found to have blood and hair adhering to it. The slight injuries to Odorico’s wrist could have been caused when he tried to protect his face and head. The witness said he had also examined the accused. He had no marks on his body. There were parallel, superficial cuts on his hands, but the witness did not regard them as of any significance. The witness described finding a stain of human blood on an overcoat the accused sent to the cleaners and on two pound notes which the dry cleaning firm found in the pockets of other articles of the accused’s clothing.

The blood on the palm-prints on the bottle and teapot found in the Garibaldi Club was human blood, he said. When the Court adjourned till tomorrow morning SeniorDetective Knapp was still in the box.

The trail is expected to last till Monday or Tuesday. At the close

of today’s sitting the Chief Justice (Sir Harold Barrowclough), who is on the Bench, asked the Crown Prosecutor (Mr W. R. Birks) and Mr Boys about the future of the case. Mr Birks said he had two more witnesses, one who would take a very short time, and he expected to close the Crown case by noon tomorrow. Mr Boys said that he expected the case to take till Tuesday. When his Honour said it was proposed to sit on Saturday morning Mr Boys said it might end on Monday.