Hearing Of Murder Charge Continues

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31585, 24 January 1968, Page 10

Hearing Of Murder Charge Continues

The hearing of the charge of murder against Bruce Lawrence Richards, aged 38, a farmer, continued in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday before Mr H. J. Evans, S.M.

Richards is charged with murdering his brother, Robert James Richards, at Methven, on or about November 8,1967. Mr R. A. Young, with him Mr P. G. S. Penlington, is appearing for the accused, and the prosecutor is Mr C. M. Roper.

Arthur Humphrey Gould, a company director, said that on June 29, 1967, he was a clerk to the auctioneer at a fund-raising appeal for a school. He took a rug and six torches to the auction. When the final bid was made he took a note of the article that had been sold, the price and the purchaser. Mr Gould identified a silver and red torch which had been produced in evidence as identical to one of the six torches he took to the auction. Witness produced the auctioneer’s list he kept. On the first page it showed that shoes were sold to Bruce Richards and on the second page that three jams and a torch were sold to B. Richards. Donald lan McKay, a farmer, of Wakefield, said he was a member of the Civil Defence Force. The fire at Robert Richards’s home was relatively fierce near the heating plant. There was a bright orange flame indicating that the fire was contaminated by diesel fuel and there was a smell of diesel fuel. It was decided among the firemen and helpers that the diesel fuel line must have been turned on. Found Tap On An inspection was made by Fire Officer Owen, Donald Duff and himself. They found that the tap was on and it was turned off by Mr Duff. It was then discovered that the fuel which was still in the line was travelling towards the house. He then severed the pipe at the tank with a fireman’s axe. It was decided to cut the line again near the brickwork of the house, said Mr McKay. He gave it a blow with an axe but only flattened it “I then grasped the pipe where it came through the brickwork, pulled it out to get a better cut and I noticed that it was quite free and had a traverse in and out of the brickwork of approximately 10 to 12 inches. I chopped the pipe through and pressed the fuel line into the ground,” Mr McKay said. Harold Fisher Lissette, a detective sergeant in charge of the fingerprint and photography section at police headquarters, Wellington, said he was given the silver and red torch by the Christchurch police. An examination revealed a fingerprint on one of the batteries which was suitable for identification. “I subsequently identified this fingerprint as belonging to Bruce Lawrence Richards whose fingerprints I took at Christchurch on November 19, 1967. On photographic enlargements I have marked 18 identification characteristics that agree and are in sequence and I have no doubt whatever that these two prints are identical and were made by the same person,” said Detective Sergeant Lissette. Pathologist’s Evidence Leonard Lawrence Treadgold, a medical practitioner practising as a pathologist, said that on the morning of November 8 he examined the remains of a body at a house on the Mount Hutt Station. The body was lying face down with the head in the corner between the wall of I the hall and the front glass panel. It was badly burned and the arms and legs were contracted and drawn up underneath the body. Dr Treadgold then gave evidence of a number of wounds in the head of the body of Robert Richards. “In my opinion the cause of death was burns and asphyxia due to a combination of severe head injuries and inhalation of smoke. The major cause of death was the head injuries associated with fractures of the skull. The head injuries would have caused death had there been no burning,” Dr Treadgold said. The Government Analyst had reported a carbon monoxide level of 10 per cent of the saturation value. Soot In

the airways indicated that the deceased inhaled smoke and fumes before death actually occurred.

Shown the leg of a chair Dr Treadgold said such an instrument could have caused the injuries. The Injuries were caused by a solid instrument, round or rounded. About 2.45 p.m. on November 8 he examined injuries to the face of the accused at the Methven Police Station. The accused told him that about 11 p.m. the previous evening he had gone to the pumphouse at his home and had tripped over a toy waggon. He had fallen and landed between two cycles. The cycles had then fallen on top of him. Dr Treadgold gave details of a number of abrasions on the accused’s face, forehead, and right ear. The abrasions were probably not less than 12 hours old and not more than 15 or 16 hours old. Demonstrated Fall On November 9, Dr Treadgold said, he was at the home of the accused and the accused took him to the pump house and demonstrated how he had injured himself in the fall. The accused told him that he had not switched on the light when he went into the pump house. Had the accused tripped over the toy waggon as he had stated his face would have been in the vicinity of the handlebars. He found no such consistent injury on the accused. There was no blood or fragments of skin on the cycles as would have been expected from the nature of the accused’s injuries. The injuries appeared consistent with scratches from finger nails.

On November 30 he examined a carpet which had been reconstructed after being taken from the burned house. The carpet was laid out on the roof of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research building where it was photographed. He found quite a large blood clot which had been altered by the heat of the fire on the carpet The clot would have been about 3ft from where the head of the body was lying on November 8 when he saw it. “In my opinion when the assault was completed Robert Richards was probably lying with his head in the region of the large blood clot. The scalp lacerations would have produced very brisk haemorrhage and could quite easily have accounted for the total quantity of blood present on this part of the carpet,” Dr Treadgold said. “Accepting evidence that there were petroleum hydrocarbons on Robert Richards’s pyjamas, if some petroleum product had been poured over the body and set alight, the pain associated with this could have been sufficient to arouse him enough for him to make an attempt to reach the front door and to try to get out of the house, with the final collapse just inside the front door and death,” said Dr Treadgold. Tyre Tracks Edward John Weir and bis brother, William Hugh Weir, who farm in partnership at Mt Hutt, gave evidence that their property was across the Alford Forest Road from the Mt Hutt Station. On the morning of November 8 they left their farm to go to a neighbouring farm. When they came to the gateway of their property on the Methven-Mt Hutt Road which led into paddock No. 6, they noticed tyre tracks in the entrance. Edward Weir said the tracks had not been there the previous day when he had finished work about 6 p.m. He had been cleaning out a water race near the gateway. Peter John Flintoff, a farm worker employed by the accused on his farm at Mitcham, said his home was about half a mile from the accused’s. The two houses were on the same automatic party telephone line. About 3 a.m. on November

8 he received a telephone call from Ted Lewis, of Mt Hutt Station. He tried to telephone the accused, but there was no reply. He went in a truck to the accused’s home. When he arrived in the drive the outside light went on and Mrs Richards came to the door. Accused In Bed He went into the accused’s bedroom and the accused was in bed. A small reading light was on. He told the accused that Ted Lewis had rung and that he had been trying to get hold of him all night. There had been some trouble up there and could he get up there as fast as he could. Mrs Richards had said that her husband had fallen over in the pump house that night. Mrs Richards said something about the telephone being wrong or a fuse being out. Mrs Richards rang Mt Hutt Station while he was there. Mr Richards did not speak to anyone at Mt Hutt. After she had finished ringing, Mrs Richards told her husband that he was wanted at Mt Hutt, that there had been a fire, and Bob was missing. Mr Flintoff said he did not see the accused leave the house. The accused had not asked him to go with him to Mt Hutt Inspected Telephone Charles Peter Medway Nilsen, overseer of the construction and maintenance branch of the lines department at the Ashburton Post Office, said he had been engaged in the repair and maintenance of telephones for 25 years. At the request of the police he inspected the telephone at the accused’s home on November 23; It was on a two-party automatic line, the other party being Mr Flintoff, who lived on the accused’s property. He examined the lightning arrester of the accused’s telephone. It had two fuses, and if one or the other was removed it had a different effect. There was no evidence that the fuses had been affected by lightning or that the fuses had blown. He did not believe that the fuses could be removed by vibrations or jarring. No repairs were carried out to the accused’s telephone during November, according to a card he had inspected. Mr Young asked that his formal objection be notified to this evidence on the ground that it was hearsay. “If one of the fuses In the lightning arrester at the accused’s home had been dislodged it could only have been removed by hand,” Mr Nilsen said. Carlyle John Hill, chief fuel oil engineer of an oil company, said that once a month he carried out tests on the composition of his company’s home-heating oil. The composition of the oil was consistent throughout the South Island and generally consisted of 50 per cent lighting kerosene and 50 per cent light diesel oil. The flash point of the oil was 132 degrees. The average time of ignition was approximately 32 seconds from the time a flame is put to the fuel until flash point is reached. It would be possible to ignite the oil by a burning piece of material or match. Heating Examined Gerald Charles Baldwin, a works manager, said he had supervised the installation of the heating unit at the home of Robert Richards. It was operated initially by an electric switch and thereafter was thermostatically controlled. It was gravity fed through a copoer tube from a 200-gallon, tank. The suonly pipe went through the brickwork into the house and was secured to the skirting. The first portion of piping inside the room was covered with a shield. Over the burner was a fusible link. If there was a build-up of heat around the area the supply oil would be cut off at the valve. The carburettor had another safety device which ensured that an excess amount of oil did not flow into the firebox. On November 9 he examined the fire damaged heater unit. The floorboards in the room had burnt right through and the unit had dropped on to the ground. The fusible link was severed and the regulator valve was in the open position, said Mr Baldwin. I