SYDNEY MURDER

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 April 1939, Page 12

SYDNEY MURDER

CLUB PROPRIETOR CHARGED. SYDNEY, April 8. The Coroner’s Court has pied several days thl3 week inquest on Stanley James ( Ma rch ’l5 Leonard, who was’ found. on. M«u shot a ndj } leeding p o t death a v e gutter* outside the Pirates in aret, at Wooloomooloo, and d hospital a few hours later. I a was the proprietor o lius Millabourer £ eS J‘ C charged son, aged 29, wbo lias “ Leondard. with the murder ot Ltoimu Leonard’s depositions wer to tore his death. This according them’, is what happened. ■•I was will, WO oth t h^ n ; cked 'door ot th” c>ub, Mt Wilson would not let us In. The othler chaps threw themselves against the door and broke it in. I walked up stairs and ‘bang,’ I it I didnt see who shot me, but I was preuy Wilson was said to have made a statement to the police m winch he said that one of Leoanrd s com panions had been “Kicker £ elly, who was barred from the club because he was a gunman. That was why he would not let the men in. Wilson s statement continued: — _ “Shortly after 2 a.m. a doorman told me that .Kelly and Odnard were at the street door downstairs demanding admittance. He said they had pointed a gun at me. I heard them breaking in the door, looked through a peep-hole of the door at the top o the stairs, and saw Leonard and Kelly coming up them. Each of them had a revolver in his right hand. “I told them to put the guns away and! get out, but Kelly said: ‘I will put it through you—you ’ I then put the gun to my shoulder, and pulled the trigger. The gun was pointed at the landing in front of them. There was an explosion and Leonard fell backwards. Kelly picked up Leonard’s revolver and Leonard and carried him downstairs. Through a window I saw Kelly trying to put Leonard into a taxi. He could not get him in, and turned 1 round, saw me at the window and pointed a revolver at me. I ducked and the taxi went away. Shortly afterwards an ambulance took Leonard to hospital. Wilson’s story w’as corroborated by another labourer, Eric Mervyn Walklade, employed as his doorkeper at the Pirates’ Cave. The witness explained the cabaret arrangements to the coroner. He said the door opened on to the street and had a peep-hole in it through which visitors were first inspected. A visitor was then allowed to go upstairs to the second inside door, which also had a peephole, and where a doorkeeper was usually stationed. If he passed scrutiny at both these barriers he was then allowed to enter. Walklade said that after the two men had started to batter down the door, he was behind the second door, which was double-bolted, with' Wilson. Wilson put the barrel of the double-barrelled shotgun through the peen-hole and said: ‘Come and shoot me, you “i thought something was going to happen,” Walklade told the coroner, “so I walked away. Then I heard a report. There was a commotion among the patrons. I heard a high-pitched moan." Gerald Edmond Leonard, wharf labourer, of Woollongong, said his dead brother had been well known as a boxer at the Stadium. Lately he had been earning £3 or £4 a week boxing at gymnasiums. He had never known his brother to carry a revolver nor had he known him to drink excessively.

Proprietors and doorkeepers of other night clubs were produced, who testified that Leonard had been a wellknown visitor at their resorts, but had never given any trouble. The taxi driver who had driven the two men and two girls to the Pirates’ Cave said that when Kelly came out carrying Leonard he advised Kelly to leave Leonard on the ground while they went to Sydney Hospital for fear they might injure him in trying to get him into the cab. He drove to Sydney Hospital, but while he went in there to telephone the ambulance his passengers disappeared. Meantime Leonard was discovered by one of the police night patrols. Wilson’s manager, Reginald McKay, said Leonard was a “knockover-stand-over man” and “Kicker” Kelly had earned his name by kicking when they were down. He said he did not actually know anybody whom Leonard had knocked over, but Leonard had a reputation among patrons of the club as a tough man. The coroner, however, did not take this view of the case and committed Wilson for trial on a charge of murder.