COURT DRAMA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23507, 18 November 1939, Page 2 (Supplement)

COURT DRAMA

Self-confessed Murderer Remembers

WAR-TIME precautions gave an added touch of drama to the final stage of a murder trial at the Old Bailey, London. When Leonard George Hucker, 30-year-old wood machinist, heard the dread sentence of death passed on him for killing the mother of the girl who had jilted him, he stooped down, picked up his gas-mask from the floor of the dock, and calmly took it with him to the cells.

H UCKEII'S former sweetheart, 30-year-old Beatrice Fullick, gave evidence against Hucker, who denied that he had any desire to stab or kill her mother, Mrs. Mary Alice Maud Fullick, aged 60. Mrs. Fullick was found dead in her basement flat at Victoria Villas, Kilburn. Mr. Gerald Howard, prosecuting, explained that Miss Fullick had known Hucker for a number of years, but he was out of work for a considerable period, and she apparently got tired of this and broke with him. On August 11, Miss Fullick wrote to Hucker a letter-card, which read: "Dear Len, shall not be seeing you again as I have made further arrangements.—Trix." On August 15, Hucker bought a large sheath knife. The next afternoon Hucker went to Harrow Road Policestation, and told an officer there, "I havo murdered a woman to-day at

Victoria Villas. She is Mrs. Fullick, my girl's mother. I stabbed her, and here is the key." Later in a statement, Hucker said, "I lost my head and Btabbcd her in the chest." In her evidence Beatrice Fullick stated that Hucker had a violent temper. Slie admitted that he had been depressed because ho had been out of work for nearly a year. They had been on very friendly terms. Hucker in the witness-box, stated that while out of work he had fits of depression and took medicine to make him sleep. In July when ho received a letter from Miss Fullick suggesting they should part he took an overdose of sleeping draught, and did not recover until the following day. He asserte'd that he bought the sheath-knife with the intention of taking his own life, "I stood in front of the mirror," he said, "and attempted to use it on myself. Something came over me. I just did not have the courage." The next day ho called on Mi's. Fullick and his friendship with her daughter was discussed. Later, Hucker alleged, Mrs. Fullick struck him in the face. He then took out the sheath-knife to frighten her, and saying "You would not dare," she made a lunge at him. "I was trying to ward her off," Hucker declared. "1 was holding the knife with the point forward. The next thing I knew siie came at me and the knife stuck in her."

The jury, on which there were two women, were 25 minutes considering their verdict.