VILLAGE TRAGEDY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12213, 7 March 1903, Page 2 (Supplement)

VILLAGE TRAGEDY.

THE SECOND TRIAL OF GARDINER. Thf keenest interest was manifested in the second, trial of William Gardiner on tlie charge of murdering Rose Harsent at Peasenhall on June 1, which commenced on January 21 at Ipswich Assizes before Mr. Justice Lawrance.

The counsel were the same as before — Mr. Dickens, K.C., and the Hon. John de Grey for the Treasury, who prosecuted ; and Mr. Ernest E. Wild and Mr. H. Claughton Scott for the defence.

Mr. Dickens proceeded to out.iue th?. case. Prisoner was a. married man with a family of children, and was 45 years of age. He lived at Peansenhall, and was foreman carelite, at the Peasenhall Drill Works, w_ile the murdered girl, aged 23, was . domestic servant to Mrs. Crisp, of Providence House. Prisoner also held prominent positions in the Primitive Methodist Church at Sibton, being school superintendent, choirmaster, and treasurer to the school and trust funds. The case he would lay before them was that the accused had improper intercourse with the murdered girl; his conduct raised a scandal in the church, and an inquiry was held, but as there were two witnesses on each side no result one way or the other was obtained. Although prisoner promised Mr. Guy, the minister of the church, not to have anything more to do with the girl, he continued his intercourse with her, until at last she became enceinte, a fact which would have been discovered in a short time. The case for the prosecution was that the prisoner wrote v letter making a midnight appointment with the girl in her bedroom on tire night of May 31, that he went and killed her, and that he tried to burn her body. Providence House was an old-fash-ioncd one, and there were two staircasesone leading from the kitchen direct to the girl's bedroom, and the other to her employers' room, but they were not connected in any way. The unsigned letter making the midnight appointment came by post about three p.m. on May 31, and was found in the girl's room after she was dead, and he would ask the juiy ! to say that that letter was in prisoner's handwriting. It was as follows : —

" Dr. R.—l will try to see you to-night at 12 o'clock at your place. If you put a light iu your window at 10 o'clock for about 10 minutes then you can take it out again. Don't have a light in your room at 12, as I will come round to the back."

Counsel, continuing, said this was a carer fully-written -letter, but the writer put capital Jotters in the middle of his sentences. At 10 on that night accused was seen standing in the street, where the light in the girl's room could be seen. During the night there as a thunderstorm, and the girl's mistress heard a scream but did not go downstairs. At five o'clock the next morning footprints of barred shoes were observed by a gamekeeper, named Morris, leading from prisoner's house to Providence House and back again and at eight the girl's body was found in the kitchen by her father, who had gone to take, her her clean linen. She had on'.y her nightdress. and stockings on, her throat was cut, and her body was partially burnt. A lamp was found in pieces by the side of the body, together with a broken medicine bottle, which had contained paraffin, and bore the label with the words, " For Mrs. Gardiner's children." Poems of a gross character were found in the girl's box, which were not in prisoner's handwriting. It was necessary to trace the poems, and the writer was found to be a young man. Davis, who must be heartily ashamed of himself. It was not suggested that Davis had anything to do with the murder.

The trial was continued over several days.