PUKEKAWA MURDER.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVIII, Issue 18539, 15 October 1920, Page 6

PUKEKAWA MURDER.

ACCUSED MAN BEFORE THE COURT. fPKR Press Association]

AUCKLAND, October 14. The preliminary trial of Samuel John Thorn, charged with the murder of Sydney Seymour Eyre, at Pukekawa, on August 24, began at Pukekohe to-day, before Mr Povnton, S.M.

Mr Hunt, for the prosecution, addressing the Court, said the case was a strong circumstantial one. It would be shown that the fatal shot was fired by one who had intimate knowledge of the house. Thorn was tl»e only one outside the family having that knowledge. At the time of the murder Thorn was working at Granville's farm, eighteen miles from Eyre's. A horse under Thorn's charge had peculiarly shaped shoes, and tracks discovered showed that it had been ridden between tho two properties on August 24. Eyre's house contained two guns, neither of which had been fired recently. Tho gun in Thorn's whare had been discharged. Ir took a cartridge of the same calibre as that used to kill Eyre. Thorn was •the only possessor of cartridges of that particular brand, within a radius of twenty miles. The night of the murder was one of two nights when Thorn had been left alone in his whare. Evidence would show that while Eyre was away, and after his return, Thorn had forced immoral relations on Mrs Eyre. Thorn had threatened Eyre's life before witnesses, and had said to Mrs Eyre, " Don't yon wish he was dead." Eyre's sons had heard Thorn sneaking into their mother's room at night. Tho motive suggested was revenge for being discharged from a good position, «nd being deprived of the opportunity for continuing the relations which were enforced on Mrs Eyre.

Millicent Eyre, widow of the deceased, stated that the property of 600 acres, owned by her late husband, was worth between' £15,000 and £20,000. On the night of August 2-1 there was nobody at the house except members of the family, and everyone was in bed about 9 p.m. Her husband and Phillip were thedast to go to bed, and she saw that the front door was closed. She was awakened after having been asleep some time by accused's dog barking, under the Ik>vk' room. This dog, "Bob,"' had lieen taken away by Thorn when he left, but had come back by itself. The dog was barking furiously, and she called to it to lie down, which it did after a time, and shoi again wont off to sleep, to bo awakened later by the shot of a gun. She heard quick, heavy steps up the side of the house, apparently going towards the back gate. She called to her husband, and getting no answer she struck a light and discovered that, the top of his head had been blown away. Between five and ten minutes after the boys had left the house* for help she heard a- horse cross the bridge below the house, apparently going away from the house. Tn further evidence Mrs Eyre said that accused last visited the farm on August 24. He had often told her ho loved her, and had asked her to go and live with him. She admitted that relations had been improper between accused and herself. They continued after her husband returned. She could not. prevent him, because he said he would "put mo away to my husband, expose me, drag my name in the gutter and get me divorced." She saw accused at the Tuakau police station after the murder. Ho asked her then what mado her think ho killed her husband. She replied, "Circumstances." He asked, ''"What circumstances?" She answered. "You knew the position of the bed and everything about the house." Ho replied, " True as I am hero I never did it." Witness was still in the box when the case was adjourned.