Evidence by rifle expert in Crewe murder hearing

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32486, 22 December 1970, Page 2

Evidence by rifle expert in Crewe murder hearing

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, December 21. “Well, of course, if that had happened I would have been a wealthy man today,” Arthur Allan Thomas had said when he was asked how he would have stood now if he had married Jeanette Lenore Crewe, a detective said in the Otahuhu Magistrate’s Court today:

Detective Inspector Bruce Thomas Newton Hutton, the officer in charge of investigations into the killing of Mr and Mrs Crewe, was giving evidence at the sixth day of the taking of depositions on two charges of murder against Thomas, aged 32, a farmer, of Pukekawa.

Thomas is charged that on or about June 17 at Pukekawa he murdered Mrs Crewe and David Harvey Crewe.

The depositions are being taken before Mr D. I. N. McLean, S.M.; Mr D. S. Morris and Mr W. D. Baragwanath appear for the police. Mr P. B. Temm and Mr B. Q. Webb appear for Thomas. Taking of the depositions is expected to finish tomorrow.

Roy Shanahan, a scientist with the D.5.1.R., told the Court that a cartridge case handed to him by the police had been fired by a rifle alleged to belong to Thomas.

Time factor On October 28 he had received a brown .22 calibre cartridge case. He compared its colour with that of others and found it to be duller. Mr Shanahan said it would be difficult to give an objective comment on this coloration. As the case had been exposed to the elements for an extended period he would have expected more erosion. However, one of the cartridge cases handed to him by police showed an amount of corrosion and he could not say how long it had been exposed to the elements. (He said he meant the first cartridge case handed to him on October 28). Asked by Mr Baragwanath what he meant by an extended period, the witness said he was talking in terms of months, but he emphasised that it was difficult to give an exact answer. Rifles tested The same day he had compared the cartridge case with .22 cartridge cases in an envelope given to him by the police. On miscroscopic examination he found the extractor marks, firing pin impression, and breech block marks were identical. He had test fired a .22 Browning pump-action rifle (exhibited in Court) and had retained the cartridge cases. After examination he had concluded there was no doubt that the single cartridge case handed to him by Detective Inspector Hutton on October 28 had been fired by the rifle. Harry Jackson Todd, a specialist in the spectrographic analysis chemistry division, D.5.1.R., Lower Hutt, gave evidence of experiments he had done with samples of wire sent to him by Mr Shanahan.

Although he could compare wire he could not say if any two similar pieces were necessarily from the same coil of wire. He could say samples were different but could not say that they were identical.

A spectrographic analysis of rust scales taken from the front step of the Crewe house and a wheelbarrow showed that within the limits of experimental error they were indistinguishable. Donald Frederick Nelson, a scientist with the D.5.1.R., said that he had tested samples of hair from the body of Mr Crewe and some taken from a bedspread. These were consistent with being from the same person. Dr Nelson said he had examined a piece of skin with a hole in it from the body of Mrs Crewe. He had found no firing residues such as unbumt podwer, and he was unable to estimate the distance from which the shot was fired. Bullet pieces In August he had received fragments of lead. The largest piece was from a 22 bullet and, although it was damaged there was no doubt about what it was. Dr Nelson said the other fragments were consistent with the fragments from a lead bullet. In the concave base of the bullet was a large figure eight.

The Colonial Ammunition Company’s engineer-manager, Alexander Mackie Aitken, said the figure eight indicated the bullet was made by

his company between 1949 and 1963. Many millions of rounds would have been made in that period. Dr Nelson said that in September he had received some pieces of lead labelled “Harvey Crewe.” The largest was clearly the main portion of a .22 bullet It also had the remains of a figure 8 in the concave base.

i On the first bullet, fragments of which he had re- . ceived in August he had found four landmarks and most of a fifth. Judging by ; the position of the marks this ; indicated the bullet had been , fired from a rifle with six fairly broad right-hand twist lands, commonly called the rifling. The other eight fragments were consistent with being pieces of the bullet. Dr Nelson said that on “Harvey’s bullet” there was one good land-marking and portions of two others, but their width and spacing was consistent with this bullet being fired from the same rifle as the other (“Mrs Crewe’s bullet”). Two remained He had, over a period from August to October, tested 64 rifles to recover fired bullets from each and the cartridge cases. He subsequently compared the class characteristics of the bullets fired with the class characteristics of a bullet already in his possession and, of the 64 rifles tested, he was able to exclude all but two, one of which was tagged CIOA. He compared the cartridge case, said to have been found on the Crewe farm, with one said to have been test-fired by the rifle produced in Court. Dr Nelson said that in forming a conclusion he also used cartridge cases which he had test-fired himself from the rifle CIOA, and he had no doubt at all the cartridge case said to have been found on the Crewe farm was fired by the rifle CIOA. Shots fired On October 13 he had gone with ' Detective Inspector Hutton. and Detective Johnston to the Crewe farm where an aiming mark and track were set up in the house. “I used a single shot .22 calibre rifle to fire two shots,” he,said. “I stood with my left foot on the brick wall at the side of the (back) steps and my right foot on tile sill of the kitchen window and fired through the louvres of the windows.

“The aiming mark was set on a stand near an armchair on the kitchen side of the fireplace in the living room.

I was successful within an inch or so of hitting the aiming mark. “Detective Johnson fired a a similar shot from a similar position. “I concluded that it was possible for a person to shoot through this window at a person seated in the armchair,” Dr Nelson said. Cross-examined by Mr Temm the witness said that after the test-firing which left him with a Remington and a Browning model rifle which he could not exclude, the position was that the bullet taken from Mr Crewe’s head could have been fired by that particular Remington or that particular Brown-

ing. Mr Temm: It could also have been fired, for all you could tell, by some other rifle that you had not been able to test?—That’s correct, sir. Can you tell us if the bullet that had been in Harvey Crewe’s head came from the shell close (said to have been found at the Crewe farm)?— I can’t help you on that sir. I do not know. Did the bullet in Jeanette Crewe’s head come from that shell case? —I do not know, sir. Body recovery Detective Inspector Hutton described the raising of the body of Mr Crewe from the Waikato River. The fullyclothed body was caught on a snag in the river and was partly decomposed. Mr Hutton said a body cradle was brought from the police launch Deodar. “I saw a thin wire around the body, starting under the left armpit, across' the back and over the right shoulder," he said. “A further piece of wire could be seen around the stomach.”

“I felt an object under the body . . . and at that moment Constable Spence (a diver) forced the cradle at the body. The body came over all of a sudden and the object slipped from my grasp. “The object I felt felt like iron or something very hard and the weight was such that I had little chance to pull it towards me.” The witness then described how a police diver brought up a car axle. “I it and what

could be described as the king-pin end was consistent with what I had felt before the wire breaking. “It was obvious to me that at one point of the axle wire or some other similar substance had been very recently fastened to it.” Trailer wheels The witness described how a diver had then brought up what he later learned was a bedspread and later he had found hair in this. “On October 22,” he said, “I spoke to the accused. I requested from him a signed authority to inspect papers held for him by his solicitor, Mr Sturrock, at Tuakau. He gave me authority. “While I was there I asked him if he could recall anything further about the trailer. He told me he faintly remembered its being painted blue and then he made the remark: ‘Now they have found the wheels, I suppose that’s it.”’

Mr Hutton said he spoke to the accused again at the Otahuhu police station on October 25. “I asked the accused if his marriage was a happy one and he replied, ‘Yes, I think so, but it would be better if we were able to have children—but that’s my fault” The witness had discussed with the accused his association with Mrs Crewe over (he years and his sending her presents. “I then asked the accused, if he had married Jeanette how he would stand today. He told me, ‘Well of course if that had happened I would have been a wealthy man today.’ Local meeting “I said to the accused, ‘Now going back to the night of June 17 can you recall the local ratepayers’ meeting being held? “He replied, ‘No, J,do not think I can.’ I asked him if he could recall anyone contacting him about that meeting. He said he could not remember anyone ringing him and remarked that he usually went to the ratepayers’ meetings. “He said ‘I feel I did nut go to this meeting as Vivien and I were tending a sick cow in the implement shed.’ “I asked him how he could remember that particular night in preference to others. He replied, ‘Well, about a week later when the fact the Crewes were missing was known, Vivien and I discussed what we had been doing that night.’ “I asked him what else he had done on June 17. He replied he thought both he and Vivien had gone to their dentist in Pukekohe. Axle parts Detective Inspector Hutton said: “I then took him with me into the room adjoining my office and showed him the axle and two stub axles

(previously produced as exhibits). I showed the accused how each stub axle appeared to me to go together with one end of the main axle. I

then asked him what he thought of the matching parts. He replied, * I must sdy they go together.’ “I then said to the accused ‘How it is that the axle has got off your farm and has then been wired to the body of Harvey Crewe without you being involved?’ j “The accused replied: ‘I have no real answer to that other than to say that someone must have come on to my farm at night and taken it?

“I then asked him if he could tell me where his .22 rifle was between June 15 and 21. He replied, ‘Well, it was in the house during that period either behind the bedroom door or in the scullery or in the washhouse. It could’ have been in any of these three places. It was in the house? “I told the accused that I believed that his .22 rifle was possibly used to murder both Mr and Mrs Crewe. He replied, ‘I am 95 per cent sure the rifle was not taken out of the house without my knowledge. Anyway, if that is so why was the rifle returned?’ Use of rifle “I asked him if he had gone out that night and used his rifle. He told me he had not. He said: T used it shooting one night about this time for possums or rabbits, that’s all?

“I asked him what night he meant and he told me he could not remember what night it was or how many shots he had fired. “I asked the accused who had gone with him that night. He said that as far as he could remember he was on his own.

“I then told the accused about wire from his farm being similar under test to wire that had been found on the body of David Harvey Crewe. He replied, T cannot understand that. I will have to say that the offender must have come on to my farm and taken the wire before wrapping the bodies up and dumping them in the river’.”