WUBIN MURDER

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 8 August 1928, Page 5

WUBIN MURDER

HULME SENTENCED TO DEATH United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright " (Received Bth August, 9.15 a.m.) . PERTH, iThis Day. Clifford Hulme has been convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of his employer, Harold Smith, at Wubin. The Chief Justice, 'Sir William McWilliam said: “I have listened in this Court to many terrible tales, but nevei one to equal this in horrordisclosing as it did deliberate killing and unspeakable bestiality and cruelty to the employer’s family.” Dr. Kerr, prison doctor at Perth, gave evidence that Hulme was capable of feigning insanity, although it was impossible to affirm the state of his mind at tlxj time of the tragedy. The Inspector-General of Insane, Dr. Bentley, declared that Hulme must have been insane at the time of the tragedy owing to the absence of motive. Accused’s defence was insanity.

A crime unparalleled in the history of West Australia was reported from Wubin, north of Perth, in June, when Clifford Hulme, who was employed by a farmer named Harold Eaton Smith, near Wubin, reported to the police that ho had killed Smith. The police investigated and found Smith in the bush, with a bullet wound in the head, and that Smith’s wife and six-year old daughter and a baby of 12 months had been violated, the daughter having had her skull fractured by a blow from a piece of wood. " Before the wife was assaulted she was tied to a bed.