MURDER CHARGE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 286, 31 October 1933, Page 2

MURDER CHARGE

.. CASE IN AUCKLAND. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Oct. 30. Charged with the murder of Mrs Christian Cunningham at her home in Grey Lynn on August 16, John Hubert Edwards, aged 41, a labourer, was placed on trial to-day before Mr Justice Herdman. Mr Meredith, for the Crown, said that the Cunningham family had known Edwards for about six years and at one time had lived under the same roof. Subsequently, when the family moved, Edwards called on them occasionally. On the night of August 15 Dora and Joyce Cunningham went to a dance and when Joyce returned about midnight Edwards came along and said he wanted to see her father (who was on relief work) about a permanent job. He was admitted and went into Cunningham’s bedroom, where lie told Cunningham that he was feeling sick and faint. Cunningham told him to sit on the bed and later dropped oft to sleep. On waking in the morning he saw Edwards lying across the foot of the bed. Cunningham left the bedroom about 6.30 and Edwards apparently then got into the bed. He had pyjamas on which he must have been wearing under his clothes when he arrived. The daughter, Joyce, heard her mother say to Edwards, “Don’t you think you had a nerve to come here like you did and stay all nightP” Cunningham then came into the house and heard Edwards say, “Won’t you forgive me this time?” Later in the morning Cunningham and Edwards left the house together and as they walked along Cunningham said, “Look, Edwards, it’s not convenient to have visitors to the house just now. I am on relief work and we cannot afford to have ..visitors.” Mr Meredith described the return to the house of the daughter, Joyce Cunningham, who found her mother and accused lying on the floor injured. Assistance was obtained, and both were sent to hospital, where Mrs Cunningham died and accused later recovered. Mr Meredith said there were no signs of a struggle. When Mrs Cunningham was attacked she must have been first struck on the head by some blunt and round instrument. In Edwards’s hand was tightly grasped a razor, no doubt the razor with which Mrs Cunningham’s throat had been severed. It was quite clear that the unfortunate woman had been struck several severe blows on the head by a round, blunt instrument, but a search of the room and the neighbourhood had failed to discover the instrument. On a writing pad found on the gas meter in the hall, said Mr Meredith, was a message in the handwriting of Edwards. The message read: “Lovers, we die together—the death pact.” The note was signed “Jack Edwards” and “Mrs Cunningham,” but the signatures were both written by Edwards. No doubt the defence would raise the question of insanity but the law upon the question was that every person who committed a crime was deemed to be sane until the contrary had been proved, and this was for the defence to prove. Edwards was apparently a man of fairly violent temper, and it was quite clear that on the morning of the tragedy Mrs Cunningham had given him a good dressing down. “The only suggestion there can bo is that he lost his temper, lost control of himself, and committed murder,” said Mr Meredith. Evidence on the lines of counsel’s opening address was given, and the hearing adjourned.