LEVIN TRAGEDY

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 33, 9 February 1927, Page 10

LEVIN TRAGEDY

VERDICT OF INSANITY

(By Telegraph.)

(Special to "The Evening Po»t.")

PALMEKSTON N., This Day.

At the Supreme ' Goutt to-day, William Georgo Sloman, on a charge of iriurder of his wife and daughter at Levin on sth November, was acquitted on the grounds of insanity, and ordered to be detained in strict custody at the pleasure of the Minister of Justice.

; Many; witnesses, were called in support of the' plea of insanity, including neighbours, who testified, of the accused's ever-growing depression up to the time of the tragedy. As' the result of business worries, it was stated, Sloman had previously expressed the intention of committing suicide. Henry John Tyzard, medical superintendent of the Porirua Mental Hospital, said he had examined the accused, and formed the opiriion that he had suffered from alternating or circular insanity. Sufferers from this type of insanity alternated from melancholia to mania. Melancholic patients, if not actively suicidal, were always potentially so. Sloman did not properly understand the nature of his act, his state of health impairing his reasoning powers. During the course of conversation, Sloman had said: "I cannot bring back or describe the atmosphere I was in that night."

Thai statement, said witness, showed the state of lnind he was in, Sloman had also remarked to him: "I never felt I was killing them; I felt I was just keeping them asleep. I felt I was protecting them; I felt I was approaching bankruptcy and that my loved ones were going to suffer." Witness also said he had ascertained that the accused suffered a previous nervous breakdown and from influenza, which was a very common cause of mental attacks. ,

To Mr. Cooke witness said the accused was apparently quite normal at the present time.

His Honour, in summing up, remarked that the facts of the case were admitted and the defence was insanity. The only question, therefore, that the jury need consider was whether insanity had been, proved. It was abundantly plain that the acts of accused were those of a fiend or a madman. It had been shown that Sloman was not a fiend but a good husband and father. It was a singular thing that a text book by Dr. W. C. Sullivan, a wellknown authority on mental diseases, contained an example almost parallel with tnat at present under review. Dr. Sullivan pointed out "that the suicidal melancholic who kills his wife, usually kills her as being, so to . speak,, a sharer in his own personality and when he rationalises his impulses, explains his conduct by saying that he could not leave one he loved so much to face the world alone, that his motive was to save his victim from suffering, to protect her against some more terrible affliction which threatened them jointly." If the jury thought that the evidence of the doctors proved that when the deed was committed accused was labouring under a disease of the mind that rendered him incapable of understanding that what he did was wrong, then, added his Honour, they would be justified in bringing in a verdict cf not guilty. His Honour put two questions before the jury to answer: (1) Was accused insane at the time" of the offence? Do you acquit him oh the grounds of insanity?

After ten minutes deliberation the jury returned for information as to whether the second question must be answered in the affirmative if the first was so answered.

His Honour replied that that was so.

After a further retirement cf 25 minutes, the jury returned affirmative answers to both questions, and his Honour directed that accused be kept in srict custody unil the pleasure of the Minister, of Justice was known.

On the application of Mr. Cooke, proceedings were stayed on the charge of murdering Rita Sloman.