MURDER TRIAL ACQUITTAL

Greymouth Evening Star, 4 July 1933, Page 6

MURDER TRIAL ACQUITTAL

“BITTERLY SAD CASE.” LONDON, May 20. At the Old Bailey yesterday Emilj Rosetta Murphy, 54, was found no guilty of the murder, of her husband Thomas James Murphy. She pleadec guilty to attempted suicide, and was bound over. Mr. Justice Charles said it was a bit terly sad case. He felt in the circu n stances that it would do neither M s Murphy nor the public any good tc send her to gaoi. After binding her over the judge said he understood that Mrs. Murphy had-a very bad- foot which needed :;t--tention, and he asked her to undr intake to go into hospital. She said s..e would do so. Of the warder his lordship aske 1, “Can you give this woman somethi: g to eat?” The warder replied that, if she went downstairs they would s- e that she was properly looked after. The Judge; If she goes out she will be walking about, and anythii g might happen to her.’ His lordship added that the doctcr and the probation officer would see Mrs. Murphy and make arrangements for her to go into hospital. Mrs. Murphy looked at the judge and said; “Thank you, my lord.” She was then, assisted, downstairs to the warders’ room. | Mr Eustace Fulton, prosecuting, stated that Mrs. Murphy‘had been employ-l ed as a. caretaker and housekeeper by] a jeweller, who had recently complain-/ ed of the way the work was done, and) given her notice. She and her Ims-\ band, an invalid, were found in bed, the gas tap being turned full on at) rooms they occupied in Southampton-/ row, W.C. The man was dead, and Mrs. Murphy unconscious. LETTER TQ SON. On a chest of drawers was a letter,

addressed to her son, which contained the following:— “I have tried, God knows, but fate has been against me lately. Your dad, poor thing, I cannot leave behind, so I think I am doing the right thing so he will not suffer. My head has gone snap, and I cannot keep up any longer. I am tired and worn out.” A witness said that accused’s husband had been run down by a motorcar, and suffered from concussion of the brain. Mr. Hector Hughes, K.C., for the defence, submitted that there was no evidence of murder, and that if there was, there was none to connect it vvitli Mrs. Murphy. The judge ruled that there .was evidence to go to the jury. Albert Edward Mutton, Fisher-street, Holborn, said that he saw Murphy on ithe Sunday before his death. “He looked very dejected,” added Mr. Mutton, “and I told him he was looking ‘down.’ He replied, ‘So would you if you had nowhere to go. I feel like finishing myself off. Gas seems very popular nowadays.’,” Mrs. Murphy did not give evidence. Mr. Hughes, addressing the jury, said Mrs. Murphy’s cup of sorrow was filled. She had had a life of poverty with an invalid husband to support. She had narrowly escaped death herself. She lost her husband, and then, worst of all, was accused of being the author of his death.