BABY STRUCK

Evening Star, Issue 20634, 6 November 1930, Page 8

BABY STRUCK

MURDER CHARGE AGAINST MAORI WOMAN [l'kr United Press Association".J HAWEKA, November 5. No verdict was returned on the conclusion of the evidence to-day at the inquest concerning; the death of Ngawai Hi Hi, a Maori girl, sixteen months of age, at the Ketemarae Pa on Saturday, October 25. The coroner, Mr 11. S. Sage, intimated that the verdict would be postponed until the disposal of the criminal proceedings arising from the same circumstances. On the conclusion of the inquest the child’s foster mother, Margaret Keroliona, a Maori woman, aged thirty, was charged with having murdered the child at Normanby on October 25. The accused pleaded nob guilty through, her counsel, Mr L. A. Taylor. After a repetition before two justices of the evidence presented at the inquest, she was committed for trial. Detective Moiklejohn conducted the police proceedings. Nine witnesses were called. The evidence alleged that the accused, who adopted tho child in Maori fashion from its parents, with their consent, kept it for twelve months at the pa, living in a wliarc with three of her own children. On Saturday, October 25, she visited Hawera, returning with Guy Fawkes masks for tho children. The _ masks frightened tho • baby, which cried. The accused struck it on the jaw with hqr fist when it failed to cease crying. This was alleged to have occurred about 6.30 in tho evening. Tho accused tried unsuccessfully to revive it with water, and called in three wahines of tho pa to assist, but tho child died about 3 o’clock on Sunday morning. Doctors it. G. B. Sinclair and J. Cairey, who performed the post-mor-tom, concurred in tho opinion that there were no marks of external violence, the only abnormal finding being within the skull, where around the right cerebral hemisphere there was excessive subdural haemorrhage. They expressed tho opinion that death was duo to compression of tho brain consequent on haemorrhage following a blow. Replying to 'Mr Taylor, Dr Cairey said that tho luemorrhage might conceivably have been produced by tho violent shaking of tho child’s head by someone else, but oven then lie would have expected the haemorrhage not to have boon restricted to tho right cerebral hemisphere. Dr Sinclair, who proceeded to tho pa with Constable Pidgcon about 10.30 on Sunday night when the police wore sent for by tho Natives, said that when lie saw the body there appeared to bo a slight puffiness about tho left side of the face. This was not evident at tho post-mortem next day. ” Tho accused was "crying when I approached,” said Constable Pidgcon. “ She said: ‘No kai. Tho child crying, I get angry.’ Then she showed mo how she had hit tho child with her clenched fist. She said: ‘No wake, put water on.’ ” Two Maori women who went to the accused’s wharo early on Saturday evening when sent for gave evidence that tho child was then in a low condition. The accused had told them that she had smacked the child because it would not stop crying. Another wahine, a sister of r.lio deceased’s father, said that when she questioned tho accused on tho Snndaj the accused replied: “ Vos. I murdered tho child.” A daughter of tho accused, fourteen years of ago, said her mother was bad tempered, and she had seen her smacking tho child on a previous occasion. A son of the accused, eight years of age, was asked to demonstrate what he had seen his mother do the baby on Saturday evening. Ho clenched his fist and struck his cheek and stomach. Ho said lie had seen her smack the child previously, but not often. When she did so she would say “ You’re not mine, you aro Toi’s,” referring to tho child’s' mother.