RAMARAMA MURDER CASE

Evening Post, Volume XC, Issue 83, 6 October 1915, Page 8

RAMARAMA MURDER CASE

ACCUSED AGAIN REMANDED. (IT TELBGRAPH. — PRESS ASSOCIATION.) AUCKLAND, sth October. A charge of murdering John Thomas Perry at Ramararaa on Saturday, 25th September, was preferred against the widow of the deceased, Amelia Perry, in the Police Court to-day. On the application of Chief-Detective M'Mahon the accused was remanded in custody until to-morrow morning, when the inquest will be resumed. THE ADJOURNED INQUEST. (IT TELEGRAPH.— PRESS ASSOCIATION J AUCKLAND, This Day. The adjourned inquest on John Thomas Perry, farmer, of Ramarama, found shot dead in bed on 25th September, opened this morning. Amelia Perry, aged twenty-nine (wife of deceased), under arrest, was present in custody. Her demeanour was perfectly calm. The licensee of the hotel at Drury gave evidence that deceased had refreshments, including a mug of beer, at the hotel at 7.40 p.m., and left at 8.20 p.m. on 24th September. He- left the hotel perfectly sober. Lillian Perry, residing at Ramarama, but not a relative of deceased, gave evidence of a conversation between her mother and accused prior to the tragedy, in which accused said she would not be without her husband for anything, as she could not control the boys. Her eldest boy thereupon remarked that he did not care if his father died to-morrow, as| he badly used the boys. Henry Jennings gave evidence that accused borrowed a gun from him one week before the tragedy, stating that her husband wanted a loan of it. He identified the gun produced in Court. ELDEST SON'S EVIDENCE. Thomas Perry, the eldest son of the deceased, referring to the conversation recounted by Miss Perry, said he did not remember saying anything. He was awakened about 2.40 o'clock on the morning of 25th September by a noise like gun fire, and noticed that a smell of powder came from his father's bedroom. He looked through a crack in the boarding between the rooms and thought he saw his mother moving on the bed, leaning over towards his father. He heard his father groaning, and asked his mother the cause. She did not reply at first, but told him to light the lamp. She then said his father looked like as if he had been shot, and told him to get a neighbour, Bill Ginnevan, to come over. They went together, his mother saying to Ginnevan, "Come on ■up ; somebody's shot Tom." His mother was crying. Witness said his mother offered no explanation of how the shooting occurred. His parents had sometimes quarrelled, but not recently. Cross-examined, witness stated that he remembered his father going to hospital in May through being poisoned by eating tinned fruit. His mother threw the tin into the fire after taking out the fruit. He did not remember her doing this before. Mr. Mays, for the Crown, stated that witnesses would be called to show +-hat deceased's illness was due to strychnine poisoning. Witness, resuming, said he had never heard it said that anyone had a set on his father. On returning from the neighbour's his mother said someone might have been quarrelling with his father, but she did not say who.