COOPER CASE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 21 May 1923, Page 7

COOPER CASE.

KEEN PUBLIC INTEREST.

NO EVIDENCE CALLED FOR

ACCUSED

MR. MACASSEY ADDRESSES THE COURT. (BY TELEGRAPH PIUiSS ASSOCIATION.) WELLINGTON, May 21. Public interest m the Cooper case has evidently in no respect diminished, judging by "the crowded condition of the court when the hearing of evidence by the Crown was resumed this morning. Acting-Detective McLennan deposed as to finding the body of a, child buried lat Newlands amongst material which I bore evidence of having been through. a fire. Some burnt forks and spoons were found in the ground, and similar | burnt forks and spoons were also I found under a building known as the j "crib.'' The same witness also gave evidence as to the finding of a third body on Cooper's section. When asked for an explanation as to the presence of these bodies on. their property the male accused denied ajl knowledge of them, and Mrs. Cooper said she could only refer the police to her solicitor. Similar evidence was given by Senior Detective Lewis, Detective Nuttall, and Acting-Detective Jarrald. Samuel Goulder, carpenter, deposed Ito making arrangements with Cooper to purchase a section at Newlands from him. They had a difference of opinion over it, but witness denied ever saying he would "get even" with Cooper, and he never buried any bodies on Cooper's property. He had babies of his own and thought too much of them for any- \ thing of that kind. He still had some of Cooper's tools in his possession, and would hold them until the deposit paid on the section was returned. ! Constable O'Donnell, stationed at Johnsonville, deposed to being present when an altercation took place between ' Cooper and Goulder. At no time did he hear Goulder threaten to "get even" j with Cooper. This witness, also gay« j evidence as to two fires at Cooper's. His ; house was burned down on September j 30, 1921, and his store on May 8, 1922. ! j Mary Condrick deposed to going o-ut to Cooper's place at JSewlands. She was then pregnant. Subsequently she was taken to Linden Hospital, ar.d there her child was born. , To Mr. Wilford: She knew of no ' reason why she should have been! "dumped" down on Mrs. Cooper. "Up to the time of going to Newlands she had never heard of Mrs. Cooper, and dul not know whether Mrs. Cooper approved of her going to Newlands or not. Godfrey Antony Jorgensen (tailor) de_ posed to making arrangements with Cooper for the reception of Mary Con- ! rlrir-lr in liiu "r^>ct, linmp ''

The. police proved certain correspondence found on Cooper dealing with this case. A representative of the RegistrarGeneral's office deposed that he had not been able to find a record of the adoption of a child under the name of Bell, the name under which Mies Beadle's second child was born. This closed the case for the Crown. No evidence was called for eitheFof the accused, and the Crown Prosecutor (Mr. Mncffssey) then proceeded to address the jury. In opeinug, Mi' Maeassey thanked the jury for their close attention to the lengthy evidence, and said he felt confident that when they went into the jury room they would give the most just consideration to the facts put before them and to the evidence of "system" which the Crown was entitled ' to lay before them. He then proceeded to review the evidence as to the birth and alleged adoption of Miss McLeod's child. Sirs Cooper was the last person known to be hi-possession of that child alive. She took it away from the mother, telling her that people, had come to adopt it, but no record of adop- ) tion had been found, and the question was: Where was that child? If it was alive it was the duty of the accused, to produce it. The Crown was entitled to assume that the first child found under the ground was Miss McLeod's child. Age, sex and weight all corresponded, and it had on the body a wound similar to the one remarked upon by Cooper to the mother after it Avas taken . away from the mother. It was not.

however, necessary for him to prove that the body found in the ground was in fact Miss McLeod's child. It was sufficient to prove that the child was missing and that it was murdered by aeceused. The history of the LupiLister child was then traced. Both Cooper and his wife told Miss Lister that people had come to adopt it, and they handed it over to them for thn.t purpose. Subsequently Cooper told Mrs King that the people would not take the child because she had notified its birjth. Counsel then proceeded to comment on the contradictory statements by the male accused concerning this child, all of which were "pure lies and nothing else," as was proved by unccntradicted evidence. With regard to Miss Beadle's first child it was one day taken away by Cooper and has not since been seen. In this case there was nothing connecting Mrs Cooper with it except that she was aware of its birth, because it was in the house where she was for some days. The second child found, the Crown contended, was Miss Beadle's second child, because all the known facts about it coincide with that theory. The third body found was tlearly not one of the four given to Cooper for the purposes of adoption, and the Crown could offer no theory, concerning it, but the medical evidence showed it had lived and had been subject to violence, either before or after death. As to who buried the bodies there it was clear that it co»ld not have been done by anyone but Coopers. If they had been buried during the day time they would almost certainly have been discovered by Mrs Cooper, who was living there with the children, and no one was likely to bury bodies in Cooper's garden where they were likely to be discovered when there were many acres of vacant land in the neighbourhood where they could s have been buried secretly. As to Mrs Cooper's knowledge of what was going on, she knew the babies were born, she took part in their, alleged adoption, and it was reasonable to suppose that she must, at some time, have asked her husband concerning them. It had been suggested that Mrs Cooper was under Cooper's domination, but he put it to the jury that compulsion was no defence in a charge of murder. An effort had been made to show that there was evidence of hypnotism and mesmerism by reference to polished discs, but if

this was the case he pointed out that

when persons were put under these trances they remember nothing of what

took place while they were in them, so

that in that respect they must accept

the Crown evidence, which went in the

direction of proving that there were ; not practices of this kind going on. Coming to the silence of the accused concerning the whereabouts of the ; children this silence was their responsibility. If Mrs Coo£>er was innocent why had she made no statement? But she offered not one word of explanation. Taking into consideration all the cir-