A CHILD TRIED FOR CHILDMURDER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6051, 9 April 1881, Page 7

A CHILD TRIED FOR CHILDMURDER.

The Chicago Tribune of Jan. 12 sa}~s :—One of the most extraordinary .murder- trials on record was concluded at Machias, Mev, today. The prisoner, is only 9 years old. The victim was 7. .To convict this child, who has scarcely graduated from petticoats, and who cannot possibly have any comprehension of the awful crime laid at his door or the guilt and penalty attaching to it, the court has sat.for three days, and gone through all the routine of trial to which adult criminals are subjected. Warren Longmore, the prisonor, was at Freeman Wright's house on the S.th of October last, after school, when a a boy," attracted by the noise of the discharge of a gun, proceeded to the premises and discovered longmore digging a hole with 1 a spade in a manure heap back of the barn, with the prostrate body of Wright still breathing, with a track of blood leading from the door of the house to the spot. The wounded boy had been shot in the head and neck, two of the shot penetrating the brain, and he lived but a short time. Longmore told very conflicting stories regarding the affair, claiming that he took the gun" down to shoot a.cat, while Wright was to stand by and keep her from getting away, and that somehow the gun went off, with the result rioted. Realising somewhat the' terrible result of the shooting, he determined to hide the body of his late comrade, ant l , before life was extinct dragged it from the house across the yard, : and behind the .bai'n,- where he was surprised digging a grave. A medical examination of "W right's body developed the most singular part of this/ phenomenal .affair, for, beside the shot-wounds, Wright's skull was fractured in two places over each temple. It is charged that Longmore, after dragging the body back of the barn, ; discovered that Wright was not dead, and deliberately struck him with the spade to complete the horrible deed. Longmore was not known as a vicious lad, aud it was claimed that the shooting was accidental, and his subsequent work the result of tne crazed condition which the realization of his awful deed threw him into. Wright's parents, however, maintain that it was a case of premeditated murder, and that their little boy was coaxed over there by Longmore for the purpose of killing him. There was a lot of conflicting testimony, and the trial, which is here regarded as an insult to the intelligence and the humanity of the community, and a travesty upon justice, resulted in a verdict of manslaughter—a result mainly due to the judge's charge to the jury.