ONEWHERO MURDER

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2499, 28 June 1915, Page 6

ONEWHERO MURDER

KEALS INSANE

DEATH SENTENCE COMMUTED

The death sentence passed upon Nom man Keals for the murder of his sister-in-law, Editli Emma Keals, and her infant child, at Onewhero, near Auckland, in February last, has been commuted to' imprisonment for life. The opinion of three medical men, experts in insanity, was taken on Keals's case beloro tliis decision was arrived at by tho Government. These three specialists were Dr. Hay (Inspector-General of Mental Hospitals), Dr. Hassell (medical superintendent at I'orirua Asylum), and Dr. Truby King (of. Scacliff Asylum), and all three agreed that Keals was of unsound mind. The effect of the mitigation _of the extreme penalty in this case will be that the man wiil bo confined in a mental hospital, but it may not be considered desirable that he should at once be transferred irom the Auckland prison to any other institution not penal. The murder was a particularly revolting one. On the night- of Monday, February 8, Keals went to the house ot his brother, and there fired, a shot, at his brother's wife, which'caused her death. He subsequently took .Mrs. Keals's infant child out of the house, strangled it, and hid the body. Tba alarm was given, the following morning when tho body of Mrs.. Keals was found, and the settlers in the district scoured the countryside in search of the murderer. It was not until the following Sunday, February 14, that the mail was captured. Keals was then, in a . P'tiablo state and he surrendered without resistance. In a statement made to the police Keals said that he had gone to his brother's house to' kill his t brotherin revenge, he said, for having, during his absence from New Zealand, taken from him his interest m a property at Onewhero. The husband of the murdered woman was .hot at home on the night w'hen the murderer went on his awful errand, and so it happened that the woman and the child perished.