ALLEGED MURDER

Northern Advocate, 2 May 1933, Page 5

ALLEGED MURDER

CASE PROM KAITAIA

MUST GO FOR TRIAL,

(Special to "Northern Advoca^.”) . AUCKLAND, This Day

In his address to the Grand Jury today, Mr .Justice Smith said that in the second case of alleged murder, the aceussed was a Maori boy, charged Avith the murder of a man for Avhom lie had worked for two years on a farm at Kaitaia. It AA*as alleged that, on the night of January 7, the accused had gone into the room where the farmer, his Avife, a boy of eleven years, and a baby Avere sleeping, and had shot the farmer. There Avas eA’idcnco that the accused and other boys had gone to the pictures that evening, and on returning homo the accused had gone to a shanty Avhcre he was to sleep that night.

The -evidence of the boy of eleven years, who was in the house, was that he woke up during .the night and saw a person moving in the darkness. The person carried what the boy thought rvas a broom, and he was dressed in wdiite trousers, white shirt and white shoes. .Suddenly there -was a shot fired and the intruder ran out of the room. a few minutes later the accused came in wearing dark dungaree trousers, a black and red blazer, and ho did , not have white shoes. A gun was subsequently found behind the shanty, but there ware no fingerprints on it. The gun had recently been fired and there ’was admission by the accused that he had taken it from a brother of the deceased about three w r eeks previously. There was evidence that, because accused had, about three w r eeks before January 7, kicked one of the boys on the knee, deceased had punished accused. These w T cre the main points in the evidence, and his Honour said that he thought there was no doubt the case must go for trial.