LANDLORD'S DEATH

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 30, 5 February 1941, Page 9

LANDLORD'S DEATH

SHOT FROM A GUN

MAN CHARGED WITH MURDER

THE CROWN'S STORY

(By relegrapli — Press Association.) HAMILTON, This Day. The trial of Charles Harold Longley, aged 39, an invalidity pensioner, of Manunui, on a charge of murdering Jeremia O'Sullivan on September 22. 1940, commenced in the Supreme Court at Hamilton today before Mr. Justice Smith. Mr. H. T. Gillies and Mr. J. R. Fitzgerald appeared for the Crown. Longley was represented by Mr. W. J. King and Mr. D. H. Hall.

The starting point of the tragedy, said Mr. Gillies, was January 11, 1940, when Longley took up occupancy of O'Sullivan's cottage. Relations between landlord and tenant were cordial until the O'Sullivans received notice to vacate their house. They in turn had to put out the Longleys to gain occupancy of thtir own house.

The Longleys made a request to have the house repaired before they would leave on September 22. Notice to quit had already been served. Longley had been out shooting rabbits, while O'Sullivan was working on the property.

The Longleys kept their car in a shed, and while the family was away looking for another house O'Sullivan came and put battens across the doorway of the garage. Longley, feeling that his rights were infringed, knocked the battens away and put the car into the shed. O'Sullivan then came to the door of the cottage and shouted out, "Hey, Mrs. Longley." After some slight dispute with Mrs. Longley O'Sullivan said, "You mongrel." Longley walked to a recess and picked up a pea rifle. There was a "plop" and O'Sullivan was shot through the eye, the bullet flattening against the skull. Death was instantaneous.

Mrs. Longley, who was at the door, afterwards said she could not see what had happened. Longley, after replacing the rifle, went to a neighbour's place to ring for the police. When he reached the neighbour's Longley collapsed in a faint and when he recovered, remarked: "I did not mean to hurt him." The rifle was an old one and what told against Longley was that he was a good shot. The question to decide was whether Longley intended to kill O'Sullivan, Mr. Gillies concluded.