CHARGE STILL MURDER

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31304, 25 February 1967, Page 3

CHARGE STILL MURDER

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, February 24.

The Crown Prosecutor in 'Auckland, Mr D. S. Morris, said today he could give no indication whether the murder charge against Herbert Desmond McElroy would be reduced to manslaughter.

McElroy, a 42-year-old barman, has pleaded not guilty to the charge of murdering Nancy Olivena Barraclough, aged 41. He has appeared at a preliminary hearing and two Supreme Court trials.

At each trial—one held in November and one this week —the jury has failed to agree on a verdict. McElroy has been in custody since he was arrested and charged on August 20 last year. He was alleged by the Crown to have murdered the woman on August 17, and to have put her body in a wardrobe in a Ponsonby boarding house where he lived.

The jury which heard the four-day trial this week failed to agree on a verdict after a seven-hour retirement. Mr Morris said he had had no personal experience of a case where an accused person faced trial for the third time iu the Supreme Court. The Auckland Sheriff, Mr J. W. Pressley, said to his knowledge there was nothing in the Crimes Act which placed a limit on the number of times an accused person could be tried. Asked whether there was a possibility of a change in venue for a third trial, Mr D. B. Pain, McElroy’s counsel, said the defence would not ask for such a change.

“The defence’s attitude is that any charge of murder will be defended to the utmost,” he said.