CHARGE OF MURDER

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 43, 1 February 1934, Page 5

CHARGE OF MURDER

Baby Son Found Dead AUCKLAND MOTHER ACCUSED (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKLAND. Feb. 1. Jane Evelyn Craig, aged 33, married, was charged in the Police Court with murdering her gon, uged three months, at Avondale on January 22. Evidence was given that the accused was fqund lying face down at the edge of a creek with a knife wound in her neck and the baby floating in the creek dead. A bread knife was found in a pram near by. The accused’s mother said that her daughter had been happily married for ten years. The deceased child was born on November 12 and the accused since had been in ill-health. Witness stayed with her for a fortnight at Christmas and noticed her to be melancholy, then normal, then depressed. Witness last saw her on January 19 when her manner was strange and witness then arranged for her mental state to bo inquired into by a doctor at 2.30 on January 22. The accused was unaware of that arrangement but witness went to her house at 11.30 and she was missing.

The Crown Prosecutor said that evidence as to the accused’s mental state would be called in the Supreme Court.

Counsel for the accused formally pleaded not guilty, reserved the defence and Mrs Craig was committed for trial.