CLAPHAM COMMON MURDER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15047, 17 July 1912, Page 9

CLAPHAM COMMON MURDER.

- SAILOR'S SELF-ACCUSATION. IS MORRISON GUILTY? iiy Telegraph.—Press Association.— Copyright Sydney, July 16. A deserter from the warship Drake, who was recaptured and sentenced to fi term of detention, has beta handed to the naval authorities. He has made a statement that he and another man were concerned in the murder of Leon Beron, on Clapham Common, London, on January 1, 1911, and that Morrison, who is undergoing sentence for the crime, is not guilty. The authorities attach little importance to the confession, itnd consider that he is seeking cheap notoriety. The man was swerving in the Home fleet at the time of the tragedy. STORY OP TilE CRIME. The body of the murdered man Beron (a French Jew) was found on Clapham Common on New Year's Day, 1911. Beron was known as a man of some means, who carried money about with him, and who wore, somewhat ostentatiously, a gold watch and chain of the value of ±J4O. During November and December Steiner ; Morrison was the constant associate and companion of Beron, and in the last week of December was heard in conversation with him upon the very subject'of the value of his (Beron's) watch and chain. Morrison and Beron were together on New Year's Eve, and early next morning Beron was found dead, having been killed by blows on the head, apparently inflicted with a bar of iron. Morrison was tried for the murder and convicted; but was afterwards reprieved, the sentence being commuted to*penal servitude for life The reasons for the reprieve were notstated, but the English newspapers recalled the fact that Mr. Justice Darling, in pronouncing sentence, abstained from concurring in the verdict. The Lord Chief Justice in the Court of Appeal remarked that it was not the function of the Court to say whether the verdict was right or wrong,, but whether the trial had been properly conducted.