STRUGGLE WITH RIFLE

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 6, 2 October 1929, Page 12

STRUGGLE WITH RIFLE

ALLEGED ATTEMPTED MURDER

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.) Christchurch, October 1,

Russell George McCarthy, charged before -Mr. Levvey, S.M., with attempting to murder Theresa Mary O'Neill, a domestic, at the ’Empire Hotel, on September 25, and carrying a firearm for an unlawful purpose, was committed to the Supreme Court for trial. Theresa Mary O’Neill, single, aged 19, gave evidence that she was a waitress at "the Empire Hotel and had known the accused for ten months. They had been living together for the past four months. After a quarrel on September 25 she returned to the hotel. McCarthy followed her and produced a rifle, in two pieces. He put it together and then said, “I’ll shoot you.” He worked the magazine of the rifle, and she said, “I’ll come home, I’ll come home.” With that he gave her a push and she rushed outside and cried for help. T. E. Robinson, licensee of the hotel, eame and struggled with the accused, who was terribly excited. Robinson’s evidence was to the effect that when he picked up the rifle it was cocked. He later saw. a police-sergeant take a cartridge out of the breech and another out of the magazine. Witness saw the accused struggling with the girl and trying to get the rifle round her head. The police evidence corroborated the fact that the rifle was loaded. A detective gave evidence that in a statenient the accused said he only intended to give the girl a fright in order to induce her to return. He admitted putting a bnllet in the breech of the gun. “I did not intend to hurt her,” he said. “I loved her too much for that, I know now. I let jealousy get the better of me.” Detective-Sergeant O’Brien said he found a cardboard box containing twenty-six live cartridges under the bed in McCarthy’s room.