SHOOTING OF MAN

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 February 1934, Page 10

SHOOTING OF MAN

WIFE COMMITTED FOR TRIAL. PERTH, January 18. A. verdict of wilful murder against Lillian Maud Carroll, 35, widow of John William Carroll, 45, an employee of the Water Supply Department at Northam, was returned by the district coroner at Northam this afternoon. She was committed for trial. Carroll was found shot across the back of the head in a bedroom about 5 a.m. on-December 4. It was at first reported that he had committed suicide. Later the police exhumed the body. Mrs. Carroll adhered to her story that the shot was fired while she was in the backyard. She fought to restrain her emotion, as did her aged mother, while the coroner delivered his verdict. Before being escorted from the I

court by the police, Mrs. Carroll exclaimed bitterly that she did not wish ever again to see her son, Charles, aged 15, who alleged yesterday that she asked him to take the blame for the shooting. Mrs. Carroll’s mother shouted in reference to Charlse, “Take him away.”

Charles Robert. Carroll, who gave evidence on December 20, was recalled yesterday. He altered his previous statement that some weeks before his death his father said that if he had a gun he would shoot the lot of them. His father was then intoxicated and only said he would shoot himself. His mother had told witness to say that his. father would shoot all of them. Two years before, during a quarrel,, his mother had followed his father with a gun and said that she would put a hole in him. She had hit him on the head with the butt of the rifle and then pointed it at him and pulled the trigger, but it contained an empty shell. She asked for cartridges, but witness told her there was none.

Three small boys gave evidence denying that they had told Jack Carroll to nvent the story about shooting his ’ather.

In the course of his evidence, Jack Carroll, aged 9, vacillated. He said* he shot his father unintentionally in the bedroom. He denied this after, and said schoolmates had suggested he should tell lies. Then he said he invented the story himself. In answer to one question, he said he stood on a chair and shot his father, who was looking out of the window. Then he said he was lying in bed when he heard a shot.

A witness said the rifle rebounded several feet when discharged on the ground, but Jack said nothing happened to him when the shot was fired. He said he had the gun to his shoulder when the rifle was fired, but in court he could not pull the tirgger in that position. A doctor said it was possible for Carroll to have shot himself across the back of the head, but it was unlikely he had done so.