A CHARGE OF MURDER.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXII, Issue 13573, 20 October 1904, Page 5

A CHARGE OF MURDER.

ACCUSED COMMITTED FOR TRIAL. Yesterday, at the Magistrate’s Court, before Mr W. R. Haselden, S.M., Caroline Hintz was charged with having, on September 10, murdered an infant to which she had given birth on that day. Mr Stringer appeared for the Crown, and Mr Donnelly' for tho accused. Sarah May' Hill, a boarding-houso keeper, said that the accused had been in her employ- as a domestic servant, and had given birth to a child in witness's house on the morning of September 10. She sent for Dr Diamond, and left the arrangements for the treatment of the case with him. and a Mrs Moorhead. Between noon and 12.45 p.m., she went into the accused's room three times, and on each occasion the woman was awake, answering “ yes ” to inquiries whether she was “ all righte” Witness had not seen the child till after it was dead. Char]otie Moorhead said that she was called into the preceding ’witness’s ■ house after the child had been born, and she had placed the baby on the left arm of its mother as she lay hr bed. The infant seemed to be all right a,t midday, except that it frothed at the mouth. Witness went away at noon, returning at. 12.45 p.m., and the baby was then dead, and was in the position in which witness had originally left it. The accused was then awake, and told witness that the baby was dead, but said nothing as to how death had happened. Dr Diamond gave evidence that he had attended the accused after the birth of her child. The baby was a healthy one, above the average weight. He paid a second 1 visit between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m., and found the baby dead. The face was very blue, and there was a distinct fiatnars on the right side of the face. The flatness was postnatal, and death, in witness’s opinion, had been caused by suffocation.. A post-mortem) examination of the body confirmed him in his opinion aa to the oanite of death. If tire child had been placed on its mother’s arm and she had remained awake, witness did not think that the flattening described could have taken place without her knowledge. Dr Symes stated that in his opinion, which was based on a post-mortem examination of tho child, the cause of death had been asphyxia. In conjunction with the evidence previously led, he was of opinion that death had been caused by suffocation, produced by' overlaying. That would account for the flattening of the. face. He did nob think that death could; have been caused accidentally if the child had remained on its mother’s arm, and if she had. been awake during the whole, time between its birth and death. He had never known or heard of a case "of accidental overlaying taking place co soon after birth, the reason being that tho mother usually remained quiescent, but a woman might have pain and toes about. The accused reserved her defence, and was committed for trial at the next, criminal sessions of the Supreme Court. Bail was allowed, the accused in £2OO and two sureties of £IOO each.