A MURDER CHARGE

Evening Star, Issue 16663, 20 February 1918, Page 2

A MURDER CHARGE

TRIAL OF WINIFRED CARRICK. VERDICT : "NOT GUILTY."-.' The trial of Winifred Carrick on a charge of murdering her son, Donald Lewis Carrick, aged three, was concluded in. the Supreme Court at Christchurch yesterday. . In opening his address the Crown Prosecutor (Mr Raymond, K.C.) said the fact was clear that an inoffensive baby had been killed, and the jury had to consider who were the persons likely to be included in the category of those who might have committed tho crime. It was ridiculous to suspect any of those who resided at Burns's. A well-known quotation was "Show me the motive and I will show you the man." That might not quite apply in this case, but it had its significance. The maternal instinct in this case had been shown to be wanting. The mother of the murdered child had withheld tho protection of a mother, and had abandoned it. The jury should reject the nature of the charge of abandonment of the child, but the facts had an important bearing in the present cose, as showing in one aspect that tho mother was careless whether tho child lived or died. It might be said that if the woman had wished to get completely rid of the child she would have put it straight into the river, but the reply to that was that sho feared to take the first great plunge. Subsequently, he suggested, she became obsessed , with the desire to be rid of her offspring.' Mr Raymond referred to the significance of accused's actions in trying to locate the whereabouts of the child, and the fact that after her arrest her stockings showed that she had been walking about in her stockinged feet. Accused had also given a false account of her movements to different people, and it was clear that she was out all night on the night of the murder. Under all the circumstances, the jury would have no difficulty in fixing the responsibility for the "crime.

Mr Alpers, in his address to the jury on behalf of tho prisoner, spoke of the responsibility that lay before the jury of considering tho nature of the evidence, and reminded them that there could be only one penalty in the case of accused being found guilty, and that was the death penalty. Would the jury bo prepared to take that responsibility? He thought not. He sketched accused's career, and remarked that the woman had had an unfortunate career. Referring to the introduction of a previous charge against accused as part of the Crown evidence, Mr Alpers contended that it was against the English law. which had as a basic principle that the hunted fox should be given a chance. The Crown had attempted to show that the previous abandonment and the present case were part of one transaction. The jury must not consider the case from a criminal viewpoint, but from that of motive. The motive of abandonment and that of murder were entirely different. It was common for mothers of illegitimate children to abandon their offspring, not in the literal sense, but by "adoption, by the roadside, and by other means. " The motive in all such cases had to be found. Shame was a chief motive, but that did not apply in the present case. The child was three years of age, and all early distresses had passed away. There was ro similarity in motives 'that would have prompted the abandonment of an infant and a brutal murder three years later by the same person. If, for argument's sake, it were contended that the two were carried out by the same person, the jury would abolish from their mind all thought that accused had acted in a selfish manner so far as the child was concerned, and as to her moral character also. The circumstances of the crime of December 8 were entirely circumstantial in regard to accused. The Crown had endeavored to show the strength of that evidence. It was his (Mr Alpors) duty to disclose its weakness, and it would be for His' Honor to balance the two : but, after all that, it was the jury's job to weigh the whole. He contended that none of the evidence was cogent enough to justify them in finding accused guilty. He argued that the Crown had failed to suggest any adequate motive for so foul and revolting a crime, and that there had been no concealment on the part of accused. When accosted by Detective Gibson, accused was actuated in her failure to explain where she had spent the previous night by the fact that she had had an experience of god and police methods, and these made, her cautious. He suggested that the fearful force with which the child had been struck pointed to the murderer boinn- a man. It was possible that the father" of the child had determined to abduct it, and when it cried had killed, it. Counsel admitted that this did not seem credible, but it seemed to him almost as credible as the story put before them by the Crown. Looking at the evidence, he ventured to say that the jury could not convict, and concluded by emphasising the point that it was the "Crown's duty not to show that the accused person was the probable murderer, but was in fact the murderer. Mr Justice Chapman summed upmainly on the question of motive. He said the present was a case of circumstantial evidence, the Crown suggesting that the accused wes the one person in the world who had a motive for the crime. If the jury found a flaw in that reasoning, accused must ( be given the benefit of the doubt. The jury retired at 5.12 p.m.. and returned at 8 p.m. with a verdict of Not guilty. Prisoner was thereupon discharged.