ALLEGED MURDER

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLIII, Issue XLIII, 3 January 1924, Page 7

ALLEGED MURDER

HEAD AND FACE BATTERED

MAN CONFESSES TO CRIME

(BT TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION,)

TAIHAPE, Jan. 3

At 5 o'clock this morning the Taihape police received a telephone message stating that a man had been murdered at Anthony Moghaivs farm, which adjoins the borough boundary. On arrival a few minutes afterwards the police found the dead body of Cordon John Cemmell lying under a lilac tree, the head and face of the deceased being in a considerably battered condition. Gemmell had been working for Moghan, and it is alleged that the two had quarrelled, and that Gemmell had been paid off.' The. bed in Gemmell's room was saturated with blood. There was also blood on the walls of the room, and a large pool between the front room and kitchen. The appearances are that the body had been dragged from the house over the verandah to the place where it was found. The body was shirtless, and the medical opinion is that death had occurred ] eight hours before it wa.s found. Moghan met the police on their arrival, and said: "I give myself in charge. I killed him." He was then taken in charge and removed to the police station. He appeared before the Court this afternoon, and was formally remanded.

The alleged murder was witnessed by a man named Robert Riley, and the first information was received by the police from Mr Windle, solicitor. The deceased's age was 29_. and Moghan is fifty-six.