THE DUNEDIN TRAGEDY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XXXXI, Issue 70455, 5 October 1900, Page 2

THE DUNEDIN TRAGEDY.

(PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.) Dokedin, October 4. Afc the Police Court to-day, Sarali Fogo was charged befoie Mr 0. 0, Graham, S.M., with murdering Thomas Fogo. Mr Thornton appeared for Mrs Fogc and Mr J. F. M. Fraser appeared to prosecute. The application to hear the case in camera was declined. The Magistrate also declined an application for adjournment. Mr Fraser then outlined the evidence which would be given. Deceased was a man addicted to drink, quarrelsome jx drink, occasionally violent, difficult to get on with, and selfish. At six o'clock the night before the murder, deceased had some drink in him. Hie son and daughter both saw him in bed about 11 p.m., he being then asleep. Nothing was heard during the night, but somewhere about 7 in the morning the son and daughter were aroused simultaneously by calls from their parents' room, and they reached the door almost together. The door, which was snibbed, was burst in by the son, and the father, who was leaning against the wall, fell forward towards him. The mother was standing, with a knife in her hand, in the middle of the room. She dropped the knife when her son caught her wrist, saying : " I have done it. I did it in self-defence. ' Had I not done it I would have been a corpse myself." There was no i evidence of an attack on the accused, who had no bruise of any kind save a small wound on the left hand, of which she did not seem aware. There were two sticks in the room which played an important part. On the back of the deceased's head there was a wound which the doctors said could have been- caused by the larger of the two sticks. She told Dr. Closs when he camo to the house, " I hit him with the walking-stick, and did it." The blow must have been struck from behind, and would probably produce insensibility. One of the damning features of the case was that she admitted she went to the kitcken where the knife was kept, and that she then went upstairs and stabbed the * man. That conflicted with the theory that she committed the deed in self-defence. The blow with the knife was delivered on the one. part of the body which was certain to produce death. At the time of the murder there was a certain amount of excitement, but directly afterwards she was perfectly calm ; in fact, she had a cup of tea and some bread and butter. Concluding, he said he thought His Worship would come to the conclusion the crime had been premeditated, deliberately done, and its execution re« lentlessly carried out. Evidence was given by A. L. Fogo (the son), Georgina Agnes Fogo (the daughter), Dr. Closs, Dr. Emily Liodeberg, and Sergt. Gilbert, on the lines of counsel's opening statement. Accused was then committed for trial, bail being refused in the meantime.