MURDER CHARGE

Evening Post, Volume C, Issue 40, 17 February 1942, Page 6

MURDER CHARGE

TITAHI BAY TRAGEDY

A 20-year-old Maori, Rakapa Nukunuku, labourer, stated to have been for some considerable- time prior to January 28 an inmate of the Porirua Mental Hospital, was charged in the Magistrate's Court today, before Mr. J. L. Stout, S.M., with murdering, at Titahi Bay, on January 28, Miss Mary Currie, head laundress at the hospital. Remains presumed to be those of Miss Currie were removed from a cottage at Titahi Bay on January 29, after the cottage had been destroyed by fire on the previous night. Dr. P. P. Lynch, pathologist, who carried out the post-mortem examination, said there was evidence of strangulation. He stated with confidence that the woman was dead before the fire reached her. Detective-Sergeant W. McLennan prosecuted, and Dr. O. C. Mazengarb, on instructions from the Crown, watched the interests of Nukunuku. Bella Findlayson, Charge nurse at Porirua Mental Hospital, said that Miss Currie lived permanently at the cottage and went to the hospital by bus, and witness, whose hours were different, spent her free days there. It was about 3_ miles from the hospital. Witness had lunch with the deceased about 2 p.m. on January 28, and that night Miss Currie was alone. Miss Findlayson identified several articles of jewellery, produced by the police, as being her property. The last time she saw them, prior to the. fire, they were in her bedroom at; the cottage at Titahi Bay. Other articles were identified as being the property of the deceased. About a year before the night of the fire the accused had done some work in the garden for Miss Currie and herself. Edna Muriel Hutchinson, married woman, gave evidence of seeing Miss Currie in the cottage at 5J50 p.m. on January 28, and Mary Grace Thorne George, married, described how she and her husband had been the first to arrive on the scene of the fire. It was so intense that it was impossible for anybody to enter the house. : (Proceeding.)