CHARGE OF MURDER

Evening Post, Volume XCIX, Issue 124, 26 May 1920, Page 4

CHARGE OF MURDER

RONGAHERE CASH ACCUSED SENT FOR, TRIAL. (BY TB^nOEAPE.—I'Rf.SS ASSOCIATION.) ■ DUNEDIN, 25« i May. John Sharp, a farmer, sg^d 72, was charged to-day afc'Balclutha bei'oro Mr. E. D. Mosley, S.M., with murdering his daughter, Sophia M'Les-ii Hiaro, aged seven. Serjeant Kidd said that on the morning ol 16th May aoousod called at the Police Station at Lawrence, and told him that he hud assaulted his little daughter Sophia, ani he. thought her injurie?-.were of :'. serious nature. Witness .asked him why ho had assaulted her, zr.a ho replied, that his oldest naughts- 1 haci <.%■ sanlted him on the previous night by catching him by his whiskers and throwing him on to the floor, and that her three youngest sisters assisted her to assa-ult him. After getting free, ho said, he picked up a piece of wood from a box, and 1 ran after :the older girls, but he was unable to catch them. On his vrpy back to the house he met Sophia, and struck her wih the piece of wood. Witness then arrested him, and -later ascertained that the girl was deac'. -Witness told accused that she was dead. He replied that she was as well dead as to be half-alive for the remainder of. her life. Witness then charged him with murder. Ho mads a statement, in which he said he struck d-eceased with ;> piece of wood on the head. Cross-examined, witness said that accused was examined by -two doctors in the- Lawrence lock-up as to his state of. mind. . Accused, who was very dull of hearing, reserved his defence) and was committed for trial at the sittings of the Supremo Court in Duneddn in August. Bail was not asked for. ' At the adjourned inquest on the victim of the murder, the Coroner returned a verdict that -death was due to a- fractured skull with concussion and laceration of the brain substance, caused by blows inflicted by the. girl's father.