Australian girl, 16, sentenced to death

Press, 1 November 1979, Page 4

Australian girl, 16, sentenced to death

NZPA Perth An Australian girl, aged 16. has been sentenced to death for the wilful murder of a policeman at Geraldton, 400 km north of Perth. Wes- > tern Australia. A Supreme Court jury at Geraldton yesterday found ] Amanda Jennv Wilbraham. ■ unemployed, of Geraldton, i guilty of the murder of Con- ; stable Malcolm Davies Stan- i naway, aged 28, earlier this ] year. She had pleaded not guiltv. Mr Justice Brinsden said , the law provided onlv one sentence for the offence: ( death in the manner pre- , Constable Stannawav was * shot in the head with a .22 calibre semi-automatic rifle I on March 31 as he stood out- < side a house to which he r and another policeman had i

been called to investigate a reported suicide. Constable Allan Ross Rice was wounded in the shooting, and Constable Stannaway died in the Royal Perth Hospital the next day. Earlier, Sergeant Victor 1 Wagstaff had said Wilbraham had told him after the shooting that she had been depressed about her appearance in the Children's Court and difficulties with her mother, and had intended shooting herself. The Crown alleged that the) girl had fired seven shots. The girl had said in her defence that she had not: wanted to kill anyone, but’ onlv scare the police away.; Her counsel told the jury' that bullet fragments recovered from the dead policeman’s brain could not be positively identified as com-'

ing from the rifle used by• Wilbraham. Detective Sergeant Robert; George Silich told the Court [ he had intervjew'ed the girl! at length after the shooting.; He said Wilbraham had told; him she had begun shooting because no-one would listen] to her She had told him she had: intended to shoot anybody, including the police, who came near her. The last execution carried; out in Western Australia was! that of Eric Edgar Cooke, i aged 33, who was hanged at Fremantle Jail on October 26,! 1964, for the murder of four! people. Cooke was a truck driver, and the father of; seven children. The Executive Council of) Western Australia has the! power to commute a death) sentence to life imprisonment.