Youth To Be Charged With Murder Of Widow

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22757, 1 October 1948, Page 6

Youth To Be Charged With Murder Of Widow

(p.A.) WELLINGTON, Oct. 1. A youth aged 20, by occupation a blacksmith’s striker, will be formally charged in the Police Court today with the murder of Mrs. Katherine Gladys Cranston, the 47-year-old widow whose battered body was found on Mount Victoria on Sunday.

1 The murder of Mrs. Cranston occurred. it is believed, a few minutes after midday on Sunday. Thirty-five hours later, or about 11 o’clock on Monday night, Constables Baker and Naylor, attached to the detective branch at the central police station, arrested a youth near the railway station. Next morning the youth appeared in the Police Court on a charge of being idle and disorderly in that he had insufficient lawful.means of support. He was remanded in custody until October |5. I On Wednesday the police notified the I youth that an additional charge of murder would be preferred against him. and that he would be charged accordingly this morning. Since the youth's arrest on Monday night the police have been busily engaged on various lines of inquiry. A number of persons have been interviewed and statements taken. Funeral of Victim

Several hundred people attended the rites, or waited in the vicinity, when the funeral services were held yesterday morning for Mrs. Katherine Cranston, The many floral tributes in the mortuary chapel testified to the widespread public feeling. There was a brief simple ceremony. The Union Jack was draped over the casket as recognition of Mrs. Cranston’s military service with the British forces in Malaya during the war. Red poppies of Flanders were worn by the pall-bearers, who were members of the R.S-A. and officials of the Labour and Employment Department,, in which Mrs. Cranston worked as a clerk during her brief residence in Wellington. Many of the women in the vicinity of the chapel wept as the small cortege passed.