"A BIT QUEER"

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 147, 18 December 1924, Page 14

"A BIT QUEER"

CHARGE OF ATTEMPTED MURDER,

(Bi TELEGRAPH.—PRESS ASSOCIATION.)

OAMARU, 17th December. In the Magistrate's Court before Mr. Bundle, S.M., John Holmes, aged 72 years, was charged with attempting to murder his wife, Annie Isabella Holmes, on 2nd November, by shooting. The medical evideuce showed that Mrs. Holmes was shot behind the lower jaw with a 12-calibro rifle, and her condition was, for several weeks, serious. Mrs. Holmes is much younger than her husband. Her evidence was to the effect that her husband and she lived happily enough together, but latterly Holmes had suspected infidelity on her part, quite without justification. He had been a bit queer, but he had never threatened violence to himself or her. He complained of being unable to sleep, and told her some time before the shooting that he had not slept for weeks. They slept in different rooms, and she had been able to prove absolutely to Holmes, that he was wrong in his suspicions, but that did not alter his attitude. He was under delusions, said witness, which she could not shake.

The evidence for the prosecution bore out the details of the tragedy already, given. Holmes reserved his defence, and was committed for trial at a sitting of the Supreme Court, to be held at Oamaru on 4th February. A charge of attempted suicide preferred against the accused was withdrawn by the police.