ALLEGED MURDER

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXXII, Issue 12529, 15 April 1935, Page 5

ALLEGED MURDER

ARGYLL TRAGEDY. ALLEGED STATEMENT BY ACCUSED. DENIES TAKING WOMAN 'JO TAHEKE. COMMITTED FOR r i RIAL, (Press Association). NAPIER, April 1f... The preliminary hearing di' the charge of murder against Williarii Price was concluded this morning. The principal witness t'o-day was Detective-Sergeant James Bickordiko, who produced a statement riiridri by the accused shortly before his airiest. Sergeant Bickeldike gave evidence that he went to Argyll with Detective Parquharson on February 16, aridsaw the accused near the scene -of the crime with two constables. When informed of the nature of the police investigations, Price said: “I knew Eva Madden. I left her at a Hastings hotel on February 4.” The accused returned with the police to Hastings arid was interviewed By witness and Detective Coddington. He was told that the police had been informed tliat there was a woman in the ear in which he travelled t-o Taheke. The accused said: ‘‘Tliero was no woman in that car, and you can’t prove it.” Witness said he only wanted tb be clear on that point, and the accused again declared that there was no woman in the car. Clothing belonging to Miss Madden was shown to Price, who identified it as the deceased’s. “Thrive is no doubt iri my mind that they arc her property,” he said, “as 1 have seen her wearing them at Lowry’s.” Witness read -a statement made by Price at the Hastings police station just before his arrest. Price said he and Miss Madden quarrelled in the Hastings hotel on the evening of February 5, when she accused him of being drunk. The following morning, the accused approached Miss Madden rind said: “Why don’t yon be friends?” She replied: “I’m finished with you.” Price said he left Miss Madclrin at the Hastings railway station. Shortly after, he was approached by a man seeking a loan, hut the accused said he was not holding arid asked the other if ho knew where he could got a job. The man, who owned a. blue sedan car, said he did riot, and Price asked him how .much he would want to drive him to Taheke. the man replied £l, and the offer was accepted. Then man, continued Price, was a stranger to him, and was not a taxi-driver. He thought lie would know him if he saw him again. No woman accompanied them on the journey tb Taheke, and if any one said a woman was in tlie car he was not telling the truth. Price denied that any woman or girl had been picked up during the journey to Taiieka. Witness said he asked Price what sort of girl Alias Madden was. Accused replied that she uas a very respectable girl. Witness also asked him if there had been intimacy between -him and Miss Madden, and he replied: “No, it never entered my mind.” Following the arrest, Price was charged with murder. Witness went to Marshall’s farm at Argyll and took possession of Price’s kitbag, in which he found a bunch of keys. Two keys fitted the suitcases in the possession of the police. On Febiuary 20 witness took possession atthe Hastings railway station of a cabin trunk bearing the . initials “8.M.” Two days later some of the contents were identified by Jamieson and Mrs. Lowry as being the property of Miss Madden. Acting Detective Herbert Francis Coddington corroborated much of the evidence given by Detective-Sergeant Bickerdike. Charles Augustus Copland, dress fabric specialist, stated that he had tested the material of Miss Madden’s frock and pieces of the material found in her cabin trunk. They were identical. Accused was committed for trial.-