Accused Breaks Down At Murder Hearing

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31151, 30 August 1966, Page 3

Accused Breaks Down At Murder Hearing

(New Zealand Press Association)

INVERCARGILL, August 29.

A 29-year-oid mother of three children, Marie Colleen Adamson, was committed to the Supreme Court for trial on a charge of murder by Mr W. M. Willis, S.M., in the Invercargill Magistrate’s Court today. Mrs Adamson is alleged to have shot Peter James Joy at a Te Anau camping hut on July 18.

Today Adamson was distressed and twice the Magistrate adjourned the hearing until she recovered her composure.

The first adjournment was when Adamso n screamed and started sobbing convulsively after the proprietor of the Te Anau camping ground, Colin Tauri, described the scene in hut nine at the camp on the morning of July 18.

Two women attendants rushto Adamson’s side and it was several minutes before they calmed her.

Later, proceedings were again stopped when Adamson became distraught. The Magistrate directed that the police surgeon examine the accused during the lunch adjournment. Adamson, whose address was given as 7 Elizabeth street. Nelson, has three children, aged seven, eight and nine. Mr R. J. Gilbert, of Dunedin, is appearing for Adamson. Mr J. R. Mills, with him Mr L. E. Laing, appeared for the Crown. Heard Running Tauri said that on July 18, just after 10 a.m„ he was in the camp Store doing accounts when he heard the sound of running feet and Adamson burst into the store screaming for a doctor. “I asked her what was wrong and she said that she wanted a doctor urgently as Snow (Joy) h-d been shot,” Tauri said. “1 told her 1 would look at Snow first because I was a registered nurse. Mrs Adamson was distressed, and her attitude gave me the impression that the matter was urgent, so 1 more or less pushed her out the door. Locked it, and ran to hut nine. She wasn’t far behind me.

“I opened the door of the hut and I saw Snow lying on the floor.” Tauri’s evidence was, interrupted by a piercing scream from Adamson, who broke into hysterical sobbing. The Magistrate adjourned for five minutes.

“Gaping Wound”

When the Court resumed Tauri said it took him about a minute and a half to get to the hut from the store.

“Snow was lying between the two beds in the hut with his head toward the cabinet at the head of the bed.” he said. “1 asked the accused what happened as 1 knelt to inspect Snow’s wound. There was a small hole on the right-hand side below the breast. “I turned him over and there was a gaping wound, which was bleeding profusely. It was obvious that the bullet had come out there,” Tauri said.

“Immediately I looked for something to stop the bleeding and I noticed two towels hanging on a line inside the hut. Mrs Adamson passed me one and I made a pad of it and placed it at his back to stop the bleeding. “At my request Mrs Adamson then supported Snow's head and shoulders.

“I asked her what had happened, and she said ‘1 shot him.’ I replied, ‘Bloody women.’

“She kept on saying she didn’t mean to do it.” Tauri said he then asked accused to hold the pad in place and he ran back to his home with the rifle he had found at the foot of the bed. Live Cartridge “While running back 1 noticed the rifle was still cocked, so I pulled back the bolt to eject the empty cartridge—but it was a live one,” he said. “From my home 1 telephoned the Lumsden doctor and the Te Anau police and then took my first aid kit back to the hut. “Joy was failing when I came back. While rendering first aid I noticed that he had become paler and his pulse was slower. “The accused was concerned at Joy’s condition and said, ‘He can’t die, he was not shot through the heart.’ “Shortly afterwards, Constable Roberts arrived at the hut and took Adamson away,” Tauri said. From the time accused came into the shop until she left with Constable Roberts about 15 minutes lapsed. During this time the accused was obviously concerned and was sobbing, but she gave every indication that she was aware of what happened. Pronounced Dead “Mr Hellebreker and I removed Joy from the hut and took him to Lumsden in Mr Hellebreker’s station waggon, but half an hour after leaving Te Anau I couldn’t detect a pulse,” Tauri said. “On arrival at Lumsden he was pronounced dead by a doctor.” Tauri said that he had found Adamson in Joy’s hut early in May and had asked her to leave, but the next day she had returned to the camp asking for accommodation. She had stayed for nearly a week and then left, saying she was going home to Nelson.

“I did not know she was in the camping ground in July until she arrived at the camp store,” he said.

Worked Together

John Charles Perkins, a carpenter, said that before sharing hut nine with Joy he had known him for about 18 months, first in Nelson and later in Invercargill, where they worked together.

In Nelson he had met Mrs Adamson through Joy. He had also seen the accused in Nelson last March. When next he saw her about April, she was sleeping with Joy in a bed in the hut at Te Anau, Perkins said.

About three days before July 18 he saw Mrs Adamson in the hut again. Joy had influenza and was off work, and she stayed in the hut sharing Joy’s bed until July 18. ‘‘They were getting on reasonably well, and 1 didn't hear any arguments,” Perkins said.

Returning To Nelson

“Snow told me that she intended to return to Nelson on the Monday of the shooting. Snow was to have taken her to Invercargill.

“On the night of July 17 I was watching television with Joy at another place in the camp and when we got back to the hut Adamson was in Joy's bed. She was only half awake,” Perkins said.

“When 1 got up at seven the next morning Adamson was awake, and appeared normal, but Joy was asleep. She told me not to be surprised if I didn’t see Snow when I came back from work.” Not Loaded Perkins identified as his, the rifle which had been produced earlier. He said it was kept between his bed and the cabinet next to it. The rifle was not loaded and the ammunition for it was kept in the cabinet.

To Mr Gilbert, Perkins said that he did not know if Adamson thought that Joy was going back to Nelson with her, but Joy had said that he was not going back there even before accused had arrived. Talked Freely Gordon Alexander Roberts, a police constable, said that when he interviewed accused after the shooting she talked quite freely. “She gave me her address, details of her children and said that she had been separated for three years,” he said. “She told me that she had shot Snow while sitting on his bed and that she had taken three sleeping tablets, all that were left in a bottle she had. While we were having this discussion she was emotional, sobbing at times, but clear and concise in what she said,” Roberts said.

“She explained that the rifle was not loaded when she picked it up. She took the magazine from the cupboard and placed it in the rifle, then she worked the bolt of the rifle and put a cartridge up the spout.

“She told me that she had used rifles before while shooting opossums, but she said she did not know if there were

two pressures on the rifle, Constable Roberts said.

“She said Joy was outside loading the car when she had done this,” he said. "She said. ‘When he came to the door of the hut I told him not to come any closer, but he just laughed and kent coming towards me. 1 shot him in the doorway. He staggered toward me and collapsed just where you saw him. He said, “O Mary, Mother of God.

. . . Go to the house and get the doctor."' Adamson told me,” Roberts said. Accused told witness that she wanted Joy to marry her when she got her divorce.

"She said that she had met him two years ago in Nelson and he had lived with her for nine months. When Joy left he had told her he was going to Auckland, but she had received an Invercargill letter from him. At this time the accused had been working in a Christchurch hotel but Joy had persuaded her to leave and return to her home in Nelson. “She had seen Joy several times in Te Anau and she had asked him to marry her but he would give no positive reply. ‘He said he had just used me and that he was going to send me home,’ she claimed”, witness said.