CONFESSION OF CRIME.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume II, Issue 114, 18 May 1881, Page 3

CONFESSION OF CRIME.

[Specially Telegraphed to Stab.]

fFKB UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.]

HOKITIKA, Last Night. Mrs. McGahey, wife of the man who lies in the Hokitika Gaol, charged with the murder of Bell, arrived in town by the coach from Christchuroh on Saturday last, and soon after her arrival she went to the police station and confessed to Sergeant Moller that she had wilfully set fire to her husband's house, at Larry's Creek, in the month of December last. It appears from her story that funds were subscribed to enable her to leave Reefton, and that she went to Westport, and from that port she took ship for Lyttelton. She obtained; an engagement as servant to a family in Amberley. She was, however, ■constantly disturbed \>y apparitions of her husband and the murdered man- Bell. These ghostly visitors urged upon her to make an atonement, and as she could not bear their continued reproaches, she determined to come back to the West Coast by the first opportunity, in order to deliver herself np to justice. Sergeant Moller arrested her upon a charge of arson. She also informed the sergeant that she asked the spirit of the murdered man whether she should take her own life, but was advised to come over here and confess what she bad done. Her statement was very minute, and she said she had walked twelve miles in order to burn down her house, which she resolved should never become the property of the mortgagee, alter all her hard work to make a home for herself. * It is clear that the unfortunate' creature's brain must be temporarily affected by the shocking events with which her name is connected. She was brought up at the Resident Magistrate's Court on a charge of arson, and remanded for eight days to undergo medical treatment. The' accused is in a very weak 4|»kof healths