MURDER CHARGE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 63, 15 March 1945, Page 8

MURDER CHARGE

LOWER COURT HEARING COMPLETED

STATEMENT BY ACCUSED

The preliminary hearing of evidence against Lena Rosita Bernard 33, charged with murdering her husband, Maurice Bernard with a knife at their apartment in Marion Street on February 5, ended in the Magistrate's Court today. The accused, a signed statement by whom was produced by the police, pleaded not guilty and was committed to the Supreme Court for trial by Mr. W. F. Stilwell, S.M Continuing his evidence, Detective N. J. McPhee said the accused was quite calm when he interviewed her, and showed no signs of intoxication! She did not appear to realise that her husband was actually dead, and on two or three occasions said she would like to visit him in hospital. The accused made a signed statement, in the course of which she said: '"We were both standing inside the room. Maurice said something to me, but I cannot recall now what it was. I had some knives and forks in my hand. I am a bit hot-tempered and got agitated about what he said—l can't remember what it was. It all happened in a flash. Maurice fell down on the floor and blood came from his mouth. He said, 'Look, I'm bleeding.' I knelt down and held his head up. I spoke to him, but only mentioned about being bleeding It all happened in a flash, and I don't remember picking up the knife. The knife which I handed to the detective is always kept in a box in the scullery. After the ambulance took Maurice away, I got some water in a basm and washed up the blood off the carpet. I did not have any real argument with Maurice. He said something. I can't remember what it was now, and the whole thing was °ver in a flash. All I remember is that he was lying on the floor bleeding. There was no one else there I had to call out for help after I saw him bleeding from the mouth. Maurice and I used to have our arguments, but they were nothing much We were quite happy." Detective A. W. Hedwig, who accompanied Detective McPhee to Marion Street, produced a scale plan of the bed-sitting-room and kitchenette, and gave corroborative evidence «, r- R 4.P> Lynch > Pathologist, said the, post-mortem examination disclosed a wound in the upper part of the chest, and death had been caused by haemorrhage from a stab wound of the aorta The haemorrhage from such a wound would be so massive as to cause death almost immediately The position of the wounds and their general character, said Dr. Lynch made it impossible to imagine that they could have been self-inflicted. Recalled by Mr. R. E. Pope, who appeared for the accused, Rex Peter Lane, furrier, said he did not hear the accused say, "We were just having a drink and he called me something that I am. not; I picked up the knife and he fell over."

To Mr W. H. Cunningham (for the Crown), he said the statement could have been made without his hearing It.

Mr. Pope also recalled Dulcie Joan Rattray furrier's machinist, and asked her the same question. She said she definitely had not heard that statement, and to Mr. Cunningham she said it might have been made when she was getting cups and making tea.