Murder From Love

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 230, 30 September 1935, Page 3

Murder From Love

Two sisters stood in tho dock at Banibcr Bridge Police Court, near Preston, England, recently, and heard a third sister toll of their devotion to an imbecile brother w'hom they aro accused of murdering, says the “Daily Mail.” Catherine Gertrude Walsh, aged 39, and Mrs Evelyn Constance Alexander, aged 35, appeared on remand charged with murdering George Walsh, aged 30, by administering coal gas to him. They were committed for trial at the Manchester Assizes.

Mr E. G. Eobey, prosecuting, said that the murdered man was an imbecile and was looked after by tho sisters, who never dared to" let him out of their sight. On June 10, lhe sisters had a quarrel with a neighbour during which someone said, “You have got an imbecile in that house.’’ They then realised that it was common knowledge in the village that’their brother was there and they wero extremely upset. Mrs Mary Hibbert, of Brownuodge Road, Bamber Bridge, a sister of the accused womau, said that, before their mother died in ' March, 193-1, Mrs Alexander and her sister promised always to look after their brother. After she (Mrs Hibbert) found Walsh dead in the house on June 11, both her sisters said, “Look what wo havo done,” and ono of them added, “We arc happy to kiiow that ho has gone to his mother and that we have carried out her wish to the last that he had never to go away.” In reply to Mr H. Tazaekerley, defending, Mrs. Hibbert described Walsh’s violent rages. He would drag his sisters about, throw them across the room, and, shortly afterwards, ho would sit on their knee and be petted by them. He spent all his time in the kit■chen. His bed was there, and the sisters used to sleep one on each side of him.

So that the neighbours would not bear him they boarded up tho kitchen window, and when he was shouting they would put on the gramophone. Detective Orgill said that in a statement Mrs Alexander said that they committed the murder for tho lovo of their brother. “Wo promised mother,” tho statement Toad, “that we would do it.”

When they wore charged, Walsh said: “I lived for him and I loved him.” Mrs Alexander said: “I want you to understand this. The terrible thing we havo dono has not only been » duty, but a promise to a dying mother. It was love and devotion for a hapless and helpless being.” Mr Tazaekerley submitted that it was a case, not of murder with malice aforethought, but with love aforethought.