Wife ‘died in a struggle’

Press, 28 October 1977, Page 3

Wife ‘died in a struggle’

PA Wellington A retired clerk was yesterday said to have told the police that his wife died in a struggle after she had attacked him with a carving knife.

Before the Magistrate’s Court in Wellington was Alfred Benning, aged 65, who is charged with the murder of his wife, Elizabeth Benning, at their Karori home on or about September 12. He pleaded not guilty. At the end of yesterday’s hearing Benning was remanded in custody for trial in the Supreme Court on November 7.

The police say Benning strangled his wife, dismembered her body with a meat cleaver and a saw, and buried the remains in his backyard.

Benning said that he grabbed a piece of sash cord and "pulled it tight” around his wife’s neck, according to a statement produced by Detective Sergeant M. Everitt.

The statement said he was trying to make her drop the knife and he “just got a bloody shock when I saw she was finished.” Benning said in the alleged statement that he later dismembered his wife’s body with a meat cleaver because

it was too big for him to carry. He then parcelled the! torso, head, and limbs and buried them in the back garden, planting an apple tree on top of her. Earlier Detective Sergeant D. L. Whitford said that five parcels — one containing the torso of a female, one containing two arms, another the head, and the others the legs — were found beneath the apple tree in Benning’s garden on September 24. Detective Sergeant Everitt produced two statements he alleged had been made by Benning. In the statement, Benning said he had mixed up his dates when he first spoke to the police, and he had driven his wife to the airport to fly to Canada on September 12, not September 5.

On the way to the airport, she had threatened to commit suicide and when he got home he was upset by this. After walking his dog and taking a Valium pill he was preparing a light meal when his wife came back. She ignored his offer to cook her something and walked into her room, slamming the door behind her, Benning said. When he had finished eating he was

sitting back in his chair to read the paper when his wife came into the room. “She rushed in with a large carving knife and said ‘I am fed up with all this carry-on and I am going to finish it once and for all’.”

Benning said in the statement that he pushed his wife away with his feet and she fell, still holding the knife. “I did not know what she would do next, so I grabbed a rubber ring with a piece of sash cord and pulled it tight round her neck,” Benning said. His wife was still holding the knife and so he pulled the cord again, the statement said.

“I collapsed in a chair for a few minutes, then when I realised what I had done, I sat down and cried.

“I put the body in the bedroom, then sat down and cried my eyes out.” Later, he went to bed but could not sleep until almost dawn.

“I was thinking of this awful thing that I had done and I woke up still feeling dazed and shocked. The statement said. He realised he was in serious trouble and would be in more trouble if he called th police. “I did not know what the hell to do. More or less out of the blue I decided that the best thing to do would be to dispose of the body myself,” the statement said. Benning said his wife’s body was too big for him to carry, and so he used a meat cleaver to dismember it and then parcelled the remains and buried them in the garden planting an apple tree on top Clothes were cut off with scissors and only a gold wedding ring was left on the body.

“The whole of this incident from the moment she came in the door with the knife has just been one bloody big panic,” the statement said. At the end of the statement, Benning said that the rubber ring and sash cord were used to play tug-of-war with his dog Detective Sergeant Everitt

said that when Benning was charged with his wife’s murder he said nothing. Benning’s statement also said that on September 4 this year his wife had received a telephone call from Canada.

“Afterwards she was crying and she explained that her sister had been injured in a bad motor accident in Canada and she was going over to offer some assistance,” Benning said. On the way to the airport the next morning his wife said he was not likely to see her again.

In his first statement Benning said his wife’s words were: “In fact for two pins I’d commit suicide,” and his reply was: “Is that another of your stories?” When she did not return, he said, he was convinced she had carried out her threat.

Earlier in the day a DSIR scientist from the forensic section, Peter Lawrence Cropp, said in evidence that he examined the Benning house on September 24. In the washouse, he found 70 tiny blood-stains on the walls and floor. There was also a large area of blood under the lino seam in the centre of the floor.

“It appeared there had been a pool of blood which had run beneath the lino,” said Mr Cropp. “All the stains (in the washhouse) were consistent with having come from Mrs Benning and could not have come from Mr Benning,” said Mr Cropp. Blood on other items, such as sheets of plastic, and a pair of slippers, were consistent with having come from Mrs Benning.