WOMAN FACES MURDER CHARGE

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 93, 13 January 1939, Page 10

WOMAN FACES MURDER CHARGE

Lower Court Hearing

KILLING OF HUSBAND ALLEGED By Telegraph—Press Association. DUNEDIN, January 12. In t.lie M agist rm es' Court today, Jessie Eva Dickson, aged 30, was charged with the murder of William Dickson ou December 12. Dr. Harty stated that just before 7 o'clock on the morning' in question, he was called to a house in Albany Street. Accused admitted him. lie saw Dickson on a double bed in the front room and as Witness went Io the bed accused said: "1 don’t know why 1 did it: but he's been going with other women.’' Witness asked what she had done it will), . accused replying that, she bad done it with an axe. The patient was unconscious, with a bleeding head. Accused produced a tomahawk with blood and hair on it. Dickson was removed to hospital, lie was in his night clothes, being apparently struck while asleep.

To accused's counsel, witness stated that it was impossible to. say whether Dickson was asleep when the blows were given. Accused appeared to be distraught, and was most concerned that her husband should have a doctor.

Dr. Uttley, house surgeon at the Dunedin Hospital, considered that at least three blows were struck. The cause of death was skull fracture and laceration of the brain.

Beta Hannah Barr, a neighbour, stated that accused asked her to mind her child while she telephoned. She said she had hit her husband with :in axe. Accused, 'to her knowledge, was very devoted to her son and husband.

Detective-Sergeant Hall produced a statement made by accused, in which she stated that her husband was a carpenter working ou the railway, first in Temuka and later in Waitaki, and that be had been carrying ou with a Temuka girl and also a girl from Pukeuri. Because of her suspicions, she read a letter written to him by a girl. They started an argument in bed about this girl, and lie had said that, they had belter separate, but he was; going to have the boy. On the morning after the argument! she lit the tire for breakfast, and while she was at the coal-box with the axe her husband called out that he was going up to Oamaru and that the girl would be lonely if he did not. Accused asked what: about her and the boy being lonely. She did not know what came over her then : she seemed to want to hit him or something, and she went tb the bedside and st ruck him. She did not warn, to kill or even to hurt: him. “I worshipped him. I thought there was no one like Bill,” she stated. Accused reserved her defence and was committed for trial, the magistrate reserving his verdict in the inquest till the case had been tried.