SUPREME COURT Accused To Give Evidence Today In Murder Trial

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31540, 30 November 1967, Page 7

SUPREME COURT Accused To Give Evidence Today In Murder Trial

“Was it murder, or manslaughter?” On this basis, the defence case was opened—with the intimation that the accused will be its sole witness called—when the trial on a charge of murder of John Alexander Ramsay, aged 24, a Waihaorunga fanner, continued in the Supreme Court at Christchurch yesterday.

Ramsay, In a second trial, before Mr Justice Macarthur and a jury, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of the murder of Gillian Margaret Thompson, the 17-year-old Waimate girl who disappeared from her home on New Year’s Eve, and whose gagged body was found three weel& later in a 30ft oifal shaft on the accused’s farm at Waihaorunga, in the shadow of Elephant Hill, 14 miles Inland from Waimate. Defence counsel, Mr B. J. Drake, conceding that Ramsay was “in some way responsible” for Miss Thompson's death, said the jury would have to decide whether his action amounted to murder—"and we say it doesn’t,” said Mr Drake—or manslaughter—“and we say it probably does,” Mr Drake said.

Ramsay To Give Evidence Mr Justice Macarthur, after Mr Drake's opening address late yesterday afternoon, adjourned the trial to this morning, when Ramsay will give his evidence. Mr R. C. Savage (Wellington) appears for the Crown.

"Ramsay will tell you what happened—but the medical consequences of that are not for him,” said Mr Drake to the jury.

It was for the Crown to prove that Ramsay knew that injuries inflicted on the girl were likely to cause death And on the aspect of exactly what injury led to Miss Thompson’s death, the jury was faced with “an insuperable problem,” Mr Drake said.

Public interest in the trial was greatly increased yesterday. During the morning’s session—entirely occupied with medical and scientific evidence—both public galleries were well filled, and the solicitors’ benches were also fully occupied. Ramsay continued to follow the evidence from the script of his first trial in Timaru, and continually wrote notes to be passed forward to bis counsel. The Crown’s case was concluded yesterday afternoon after the calling of 30 witnesses. Events At Ramsay’s Farm In final evidence for the Crown, Detective Sergeant P. J. O'Donovan, who was in the witness-box more than an hour, and Detective Constable M. J. K. Mitchell described events leading to Ramsay’s arrest at his Waihaorunga farmhouse on Sunday, January 22—Ramsay’s increasing agitation when police searchers were using grappling irons at the offal shaft, his retreat to a washhouse lavatory with a loaded 303 rifle, and his threat there to shoot himself and anybody who came into the house. Detective Sergeant O'Donovan, who has already been awarded the British Empire Medal in recognition of the incident, described how he had coaxed Ramsay—still with his loaded rifle—out of the lavatory, and over a two-hour period early on the Sunday afternoon taken a detailed statement from Ramsay, while the latter sat on a sofa with the rille pointing at his own forehead, and his finger on the trigger. “During the making of the statement, the accused was calm until he came to telling how he had killed Gillian Margaret Thompson,” Detective Sergeant O'Donovan said. After describing how he had managed to disarm Ramsay when the latter relaxed guard. Detective Sergeant J-

O'Donovan read Ramsay’s statement to the court. Detective Inspector M. T. Churches gave evidence that an investigation of Ramsay’s allegation that Miss Thompson's father had paid him money to kill his daughter had led to “no further action.” Defence Opening Mr Drake, in his opening address, said that Ramsay’s series of “panic-stricken actions,” one after another, on New Year’s Day, could largely be explained by his having had so much to drink. But of his later “rather frightening allegation” against Mr Thompson, the dead girl’s father, he would go into the witness-box, like a man, and withdraw it. It was just not true.

Mr Drake said that Ramsay would not offer a positive defence of “murder or not,” but rather pose the question: had the Crown proved its case of murder against him? The Crown said that Ramsay had intended Miss Thompson’s death, or that he intended her injuries which he knew were likely to cause death—but it was for the Crown, not Ramsay, to prove that

Ramsay would say that when he put the gag in the girl’s mouth he had no knowledge whatever that it might lead to her death. He had had no intention to harm, or kill, her, but only to prevent her calling out when he went to borrow petrol. This incident, said Mr Drake, occurred when Ramsay was driving the injured girl to his home, intending to make a clean breast of matters to his wife. Mr Drake had earlier said to the jury: “If the expert witness could not say this girl died of asphyxia, and that this asphyxia was caused by this or that act, then how can you as laymen be satisfied as to the act by the accused which caused her death? "Ramsay is not able to tell you what finally caused her death. He will tell you what happened—but the medical consequences are not for him. It is for the expert witness. Dr Faigan—who no doubt impressed you as an honest witness, and who did concede, in this particular instance, that apart from saying it was asphyxia, he could not tell you what act caused the asphyxia. “If you are left, as Dr Faigan seems to be left, that the asphyxia could have been caused by two acts, and ! you do not know which it | was, then, Mr Foreman and members of the jury, you; will find it extremely difficult, to ascertain Ramsay's state ofi mind at the time the vital act occurred. “Because if it is either A or ‘ B, and you do not know which then you are faced—and what I say is entirely subject to his Honour’s direction on the law—with an insuperable problem," Mr Drake said. Pathologist Cross-Examined Dr A. L. Faigan, the Timaru pathologist who -conducted the post-mortem examination of Miss Thompson’s body—and who on Tuesday said he considered the cause of her death to be “asphyxia associated with a sub-dural haemorrhage of the brain”—had almost an hour’s detailed cross-examination by Mr Drake when the case resumed yesterday morning. Under questioning, Dr Faigan said he was unable to decide whether Miss Thompson’s death had occurred from the subdural haemorrhage [produced by a blow on the head] and its complications, or whether the newspaper gag was the final factor causing death. Challenged that in March, at the original deposition of evidence in the case, he had held the opinion that asphyxia causing death had been the result of the insertion of the gag. Dr Faigan said: “At that time, and now, my opinion is, and always has been, that it is impossible to decide how the asphyxia came about” Mr Drake: Did you not at Ramsay’s first trial agree that ■ the most likely cause of asphyxia was the blocking of the air passage from the insertion of the gag?—l re-

member agreeing that the most likely cause of asphyxia was the blocking of the ■ air passage, but this could have been caused by obstructions other than the gag. Dr Faigan said he could not say with certainty what caused the asphyxia - “we have a choice of a number of things,” he said—but he was satisfied that the asphyxia was subsequent to the subdural haemorrhage. Mr Drake: You said yesterday that the asphyxia was associated with the sub-dural haemorrhage?—Yes. You didn’t mean by that that the asphyxia was caused only by the subdural haemorrhage?—No, I consider that the sub-dural haemorrhage was the most likely injury which led, finally to asphyxia. At a further stage, Dr Faigan said he could disregard the possibility of the fracture to the girl's skull occurring after death, as a result of the body’s free fall 30ft down the offal shaft. The girl would have to have been rendered unconscious, or dead, to get the gag in her mouth. “The blow op the head is the most obvious injury to produce unconsciousness, because the gag most certainly could not have been put in anybody’s mouth unless the person were dead or in a deep coma,” Dr Faigan said. Finally, to Mr Drake, Dr Faigan said that his postmortem examination disclosed no torn underclothing, which sometimes was Indicative of sexual assault, nor anything to suggest a sexual assault on the girl just before her death. Bloodstains And Hairs

In a summary of his scientific evidence, Leslie Wilkinson, a scientist with the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, said he found bloodstains of a similar group to that of Miss Thompson in various parts of the accused’s car, and on a horse cover found hanging in a hedge on the accused’s farm. He found on the girl’s duffel coat and other clothing, animal hairs similar to those on the horse cover and in the boot of Ramsay’s car—and on

Ramsay's sports shirt found two hairs “very similar” to Miss Thompson's hair.

Mr Wilkinson said that the general appearance of Ramsay’s car was one of neglect and damage to fittings inside and out —but with greater damage to fittings in the vicinity of the front passenger’s seat than elsewhere. The car’s appearance suggested partial cleaning of the front passenger’s seat and round the front passenger’s door. Mr Wilkinson said he concluded that somebody of Miss Thompson's blood group had bled freely in the front seat of the car, after some struggle with an assailant —at which stage there was an objection by Mr Drake as to witness's competence to speculate on what might have happened. Mr Savage, to his Honour, said he would not press the matter further.