SUPREME COURT Jury Finds Ramsay Guilty Of Murdering Girl

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31542, 2 December 1967, Page 23

SUPREME COURT Jury Finds Ramsay Guilty Of Murdering Girl

After a week-long trial, John Alexander Ramsay, a 24-year-old Waihaorunga farmer, was again found guilty, in the Supreme Court at Christchurch last evening, of the murder of Gillian Margaret Thompson near Waimate on New Year’s Day.

Mr Justice Macarthur sentenced Ramsay to life imprisonment.

The jury added a rider strongly recommending mercy —but his Honour told them that the sentence to be passed for murder was fixed by law. “But I will see to it that what you have said is brought to the attention of the Minister of Justice,” his Honour said.

The verdict against Ramsay was returned at 8.30 p.m., after the jury had deliberated four hours and a half and soon after the jury had returned to court to ask a question on the law of culpable homicide relating to the commission of an act for an unlawful object The jury consisted of nine men and three women, one of whom had taken a full note of the evidence in shorthand.

Public interest in the trial, which increased throughout the week, was maintained until the verdict was given, spectators having remained in the gallery since the tea break. Ramsay’s 19-year-old wife, however, who had heard Mr B. J. Drake’s address in her husband’s defence in the morning session, was not present.

Ramsay’s original conviction for the murder of Miss Thompson, in the Supreme Court at Timaru on April 21, was quashed by the Court of Appeal, on the ground of misdirection in the judge’s summing-up to the jury, and a new trial was ordered.

Miss Thompson’s gagged body, with a fractured skull and various facial injuries, was found down a 30ft offal shaft on Ramsay’s 485-acre farm at Waihaorunga, 14 miles south-west of Waimate, three weeks after she disappeared from the street outside her home on New Year’s Eve. The jury, a few minutes before giving its verdict, had been told by his Honour, in answer to its question, that if it held that Ramsay inserted the gag in Miss Thompson’s mouth for the unlawful object of keeping hejr- quiet and that he knew ■‘Such an act was likely to cause death, even though he did not intend it, he was still guilty of murder.

His Honour said he assumed, from the jury’s question, that they held the gag to have been the cause of the girl’s death. If the jury held that Ramsay had not known the gag was likely to cause death, or was in reasonable doubt that he knew, then he was not guilty of murder. His Honour, after the jury’s verdict, thanked members for their consideration of “a difficult and anxious case,” and excused them from further jury service for three years. Mr Justice Macarthur occupied an hour and a half in summing up the case yesterday afternoon. He read a long passage of the medical evidence of Dr L. A. Faigan, detailing Miss Thompson’s injuries, and told the jury that Ramsay’s conduct before and after their infliction was a relevant consideration. “What manner of man has he shown himself to be, especially as regards what he will do towards others?” his Honour said. Although he warned the jury against an emotional approach, he asked what the evidence showed regarding Ramsay’s conduct towards the girl. The jury might well conclude, on the whole of the evidence, that some vicious blows Jiad been struck at one time or another.

Later, his Honour said that the jury, on all the evidence, might well conclude that Miss Thompson’s death had resulted from one episode—“that is, meaning to cause her death, the accused first hit her, and still meaning to cause her death, put the gag in her mouth,” he said. “If that is your view, it is murder,” his Honour said. “It may well be that that view of the case will be accepted.” But, said his Honour, if that were not the jury’s view, then the Crown put the case in other ways—which his Honour then proceeded to examine, traversing the arguments of both Crown and defence. “Intention To Kill”

If Ramsay had intended to kill Miss Thompson—and the Crown submitted, strongly, that he dick-then it really did not matter what had caused her death, said the Crown Prosecutor (Mr R. C. Savage) addressing the jury. What possible reason could Ramsay have had for his series of actions—from the time he first set out for his home again from the Waimate Gorge—other than the intention to kill Miss Thompson, and get rid of her? Mr Savage asked. After knocking the girl out

at the Waimate Gorge lay-by, Ramsay had set out not for the girl’s home, not for the Waimate Hospital, but to take her back to his own farm. “And be had 10 miles to make up his mind what he would do, before running out of petrol and reaching Mehrtens’ farm,” said Mr Savage. Mr Savage, in a three-quarter-hour address, dealt with the three alternative bases on which the Crown put its case of murder, and traversed evidence relevant to each—but said that the ffrst basis, that Ramsay meant to kill Miss Thompson, was urged the strongest, and relied upon. Ramsay, said Mr Savage, had admitted that to strike a girl from behind with a beer bottle—whether full Or empty, it did not much matter—was an extremely dangerous thing to do. Mr SavUge conceded that Miss Thompson was probably not badly injured at this stage. There was “the silent and pathetic evidence” of two bloodstained handkerchiefs found in her duffel coat pocket (and a third untouched), as though she had wiped blood from her head or face.

“But how did the girl suffer the blow which fractured her skull —a matter which is crucial—a blow which Dr Faigan said would require considerable force?” Mr Savage asked. But of that, Ramsay had never spoken. 'Mr Savage had earlier submitted to the jury that Ramsay was a- self-confessed liar, so that the jury could accept, or reject, just as much or as little of his evidence as it liked.

Ramsay had given some explanations, to fit proven facts, but on other matters—such as the blow which fractured Miss Thompson’s skull—had offered nothing. Ramsay, submitted Mr Savage, had confessed to lying about a lot of things, all along the line, even in his final statement to Detective Sergeant P. J. O'Donovan.

“But I suggest you might very well conclude that a good deal of that statement is true,” said Mr Savage. He reminded the jury that Ramsay, when describing in the statement how he had put

Miss Thompson in the boot of his car, had said:. “I must have hit her again. I don’t know what I hit her with ...”

Mr Savage submitted that Ramsay, in spite of his denial, had hit Miss Thompson at that stage, put the gag in her mouth, locked her in the boot, and then spent three-quarters of an hour in calm self-possession at the Mehrtens—actions which indicated he had intended to kill Miss Thompson, and to get rid of her body in the offal pit when he reached home.

Defence Address Mr Drake, summarising his 80-minute address for the defence, submitted that the Crown -had failed to prove Ramsay’s intention to kill Miss Thompson, and the act which had led to her death. Mr Drake submitted that the jury must find that Ramsay’s meeting with Miss Thompson in Waimate in the early hours of New Year’s Day had been entirely fortuitous, and not associated with the improper motive of sexual advances. There was just no evidence of that Mr Drake’s defence followed the lines of his opening address oh Wednesday —a concession that Ramsay admitted to manslaughter, but a denial that the Crown had proved its case of murder against him. “Notwithstanding the injuries that this girl sustained

you cannot say that at any stage the Crown has proved to you that Ramsay intended to kill her,"Mr Drake said.

If the jury eould not locate the act by Ramsay which caused asphyxia—-which the Crown said was the cause of death-then the jury .did not have to worry whether he knew it would cause death.

The Crown, said Mr Drake, had offered several reasons for saying Ramsay intended to kill Miss Thompson. But Ramsay had been faced with “a situation of panic and crisis” and had not known how to cope with it. “Is this the case of a young man who meant to kill this girl, at any stage?” said Mr Drake. “Is it not the case of a young man who just was not able to cope with the situation, and reacted to each situation as it presented it-

self, in an indescribably foolish way but not at any time pointins to his intention to kill her?”

The Crown asked the jury to find, said Mr Drake, that Ramsay, on the public roadside and in broad daylight, hit Miss Thompson over the head with an object which had never been found, before placing her in the boot of his car.

“Can you say that this blow was struck, and struck meaning to kill her?" Mr Drake said. And could the jury infer that putting the girl in the boot indicated an intention to kill her? ‘•What was the cause of the fractured skull? You don’t know,” said Mr Drake. “You don't know the surrounding circumstances.” The jury would have to decide whether it occurred before, or after, death. Mr Drake, answering the Crown's opening submission that Ramsay’s crime had been murder, and must be punished as murder, assured the jury that there was an appropriate punishment for manslaughter—“a very heavy penalty,” he said—and that Ramsay would not go unpunished. * This, said his Honour in bis summing-up, was a reference which should never have been made. “It is irrelevant to this inquiry,” his Honour said.

Divorce Suit Dismissed

After hearing the evidence of the co-respondent, Jan Graham, and' a witness in her support, ,in a divorce suit in the Supreme Court yesterday, Mr Justice Wilson dismissed the petition brought by Milica Ferkovie (Mr M. F. Hobbs) against her husband, Milorad Ferkovie, a painter and paperhanger (Mr J. R. Milligan). Mrs Perkovie had alleged her husband’s adultery on July 8, at a house in Burlington Street, Sydenham, naming Miss Graham (Mr J. G. Leggat) as co-respondent Both respondent and corespondent had, in evidence, denied the allegation.