SERIOUS CHARGES

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 256, 25 July 1936, Page 9

SERIOUS CHARGES

Infant’s Body Unearthed In Garden WOMAN BEFORE COURT Pathologist’s Eivdence About Other Remains By Telegraph—Press Association. Napier, July 24. The hearing of five charges against a Hastings woman, Isabel Annie Aves, alias Craike, of using an illegal instrument, was commenced to-day. It was stated by Inspector Fitzpatrick that the offences to which the charges related were similar in character.

While digging on accused’s property, said the inspector, the police had discovered the bodies of two infant children and the remains of about 20 others.

The names of some girl witnesses were suppressed. ' A single girl gave evidence as to the success of an operation performed by accused. She was told to leave the premises as a police visit was -pending. A taxi-driver stated that he drove the previous witness to Dannevirke from accused’s home. Dr. Dawson confirmed the fact of delivery, which probably occurred a week before his examination of the witness.

zV photographer, Wallace Poll, said he took a photograph of boles dug by the police and certain exhibits removed from them. The second chief witness for the prosecution, a single woman residing at Napier, said in June, 1935, she visited accused on account of her condition; she went to Mrs. Aves’s house. “I told her about my condition and she said she would fix me up,” said witness. "I told her about my boy friend and said he would see her later on. I told her he wasn’t working and she said she would not charge him very much.” Three other women gave evidence of having been successfully operated upon with the 1 object of procuring a certain result. The charges made by accused varied in amount up to £35. One witness said detectives visited accused’s house and accused told witness they were there in the afternoon. Mrs. Aves told witness the detectives had found a body in the garden and instructed witness to tell them she had buried it herself. She had not done so. A resident of Palmerston North stated he knew accused when he was in business as a grocer at Hastings. In addition to this, he was employed as a salesman for a firm of general merchants and druggists. She asked him to procure certain articles for her. This he did from a Wellington firm. Phillip Patrick Lynch, pathologist, of Wellington Hospital, said that on June 26 he accompanied Detective Farquharson to accused’s house. He was present when officers exposed the body of an infant buried iu a duck pen at the rear of the premises of accused. It was buried ten inches deep and surrounded with lime; it was not decomposed. At the morgue a post-mortem examination of the body was made. It was the body of a female, weighing 6lb. 6oz. There were no external marks of violence.

"zYppearances would only be accounted for by the child having breathed either during actual delivery or after birth,” said witness, who added that he formed the opinion the child had received no attention after birth. He could form no opinion as to how long the child had survived after birth. He could find nothing which pointed to suffocation as the cause of death. Examination of the body of another fetus uncovered a few feet from where the other was found showed it had developed for six months. It had possibly been buried for some days, possibly a week or two. He did not think that it was viable. He saw fetal remains dug up from the kitchen garden to the number of 20. None of the remains, with perhaps one exception, appeared to be those of a viable child. Detective F. Hayhurst, of Wellington, gave evidence of the recovery of bodies from the rear of accused’s house.

The court adjourned at 10 p.m. until to-morrow morning, when five further witnesses will be heard.