TRAGIC STORY

Evening Post, Issue 154, 1 July 1936, Page 10

TRAGIC STORY

SHOOTING OF FATHER

GIRL'S FRENZIED ACT

MURDER CHARGE DISMISSED

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

NELSON, June 30.

A charge of murder • against a 15----year-old girl, Agnes E. Caldwell, who shot her father, Joseph Caldwell, dead in the kitchen of their home at Kiwi on "June 16, was dismissed by the Magistrate (Mr. T. R. Maunsell) today. Mr. Maunsell said that he believed acquittal by a jury was certain.

Mrs. Christina Caldwell, the girl's mother, said her married life and been very unhappy because of her husband's conduct. • On the morning of June 16, at 9.30 o'clock, she was having breakfast with her late husband 'and her daughter. Her husband noticed that some sheep had got into the turnips and he sent Agnes to put them out. She had had some difficulty in getting them out, and her husband became angry. He told witness that if Agnes did not get them out he would help her with his fists. He called witness and his daughter a pair of lazy , and she replied that he should not expect the girl to do the same as he did.-

Agnes got the sheep through after a < it of v trouble, said witness. Her hus- , and next threw a dessertspoon at witess and she threw it back. ' He ap- ] roached witness and she tried to get way from him. She left the diningoom and went into the kitchen, where > c caught hold of her and tried to hit i er head against the chimney bricks. ihe screamed to her daughter to come o her help; Agnes was then in the ining-room. Witness tried to scratch er husband's face, and the next thing h.. heard a shot fired. Her husband vas struggling with her at the time xid her head was down; he was facing ier. She looked up after the firing of he shot. She did not then see her laughter, but heard her scream. She hought the shot came from outside. At he moment she remembered seeing her msband fall. She asked Agnes whether ihe had fired the shot and she said, 'I did." She said that she had fired t just to frighten her father. TERRIFIED OF HUSBAND. Witness said she was so terrified that norning that she thought her husband ivas going to carry into effect his threat to kill her. She nearly always bore narks of her husband's ill-treatment. For a long period her husband had a loaded gun by him at night and a butcher's knife beneath his pillow. Reginald Charles Ricketts, a farmer, of Kiwi, a neighbour of the Caldwells, said he heard a shot, and went to the house. Witness knew Caldwell used to beat his wife and had an insane temper. Herbert James Duncan, railway employee, said he was passing Caldwells, house on a jigger when Agnes stopped him and called: "Come and help us; dad's thrashing mum." As"he approached, the girl said, "I've, shot dad." FIRED TO FRIGHTEN. Sergeant W. H. Simest°r produced a statement made by the girl. In her statement she detailed the difficulty she

had had with the sheep on the morning of June 16, and said her. father had shouted at her saying that he would help her with his fists. She succeeded in getting the sheep through the fence and when she came back she heard her father "barneying" with her mother and he said that she and witness were a pair of . She was having her breakfast when she heard scuffling in the kitchen and a cali for help. She looked towards the spare room and saw a rifle standing there. Hardly knowing what she was doing, she took it to the kitchen and fired it off to frighten her father. She saw her father slump back. This was the first shot she had ever fired out of any gun. She did not recollect whether she put a cartridge in the rifle or not. She ran out and stopped the men, saying that she had shot her father. Last Christmas her father had threatened to shoot the lot of them, and he was always abusing her mother. NOT WITHOUT PRECEDENT. In dismissing the information the Magistrate said: "I realise the heavy responsibility a Magistrate takes in dismissing a murder charge instead of sending it to a jury. It is,, however, not without precedent. The law is the same in a charge of murder as in any other, indictable case.. The hearing before me is not a mere matter of form. I have to consider whether there is a prima facie case made out of wilful murder-upgn: which a jury of reasonably-minded men could convict having regard to the .fact that wilful intent to murder must be proved beyond reasonable doubt. The accused girl has given what seems to me to be a reasonable; account of what^happened. Her deceased father was a sad case of shell-shock occasioned by war service and suffered from ungovernable impulses of violence. He was in the act of committing a violent and unprovoked assault on his wife. There was a loaded rifle in a room and the girl's statement is that in a frenzy of fear that her mother would be murdered she seized it and fired it solely with the intention of frightening him, but shot him accidentally. "ACQUITTAL CERTAIN." "There is no evidence whatsoever that her story is untrue in any particu-i lar," Mr. Maunsell continued. "I believe, therefore, that her acquittal by a jury, if not by a grand jury, is certain, and to hold the charge over her head would be refinement of cruelty to her and- to her mother who substantiates her statements. The police were in duty bound to bring the charge d i and leave the responsibility" to me. I c have decided to accept the responsibility by dismissing the charge. If it is any consolation to the child, I may say I entirely believe'that what she so frankly told Sergeant Simoster was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."