KINGSLAND MYSTERY

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7870, 4 August 1911, Page 1

KINGSLAND MYSTERY

ELSIE HOLLAND’S DEATH

MRS O'SHAUGHNESSY BEFORE THE COURT. PB'EBS ASSOCIATION. AUCKLAND, August 3. The Police Court was crowded to-day, when the preliminary bearing of the case of Martha . Jane O’Shaughnessy, charged with the murder of Elsie Alexandra Holland, was proceeded with, before Mr Fraser, S.M. Mr Mays, Crown Prosecutor, stated that he only proposed to that, day with the main charge against Mrs Martha Jane O'Shaughnessy of murder, and to ask that the other prisoners, who would bo charged with being accessories after the fact, should be remanded until the following day. Mr Singer, for the defence, said he had no objection to that course being taken, and intimated that ho proposed to apply that each <cuse should be taken separately. THREE ACCUSED REMANDED. The other accused persons—Mrs Hartley, Mrs Hassell and J. E. O’Shaughnessy—were then remanded until the following day, and tue hearing of the charge. against Mrs O'Shaughnessy, who was accommodated with a chair oehind her counsel, was xnoceeded with. Mr Mays then proceeded to ox>en the case for the prosecution. Ho said the deceased - woman, Elsie Alexandra Holland, accompanied by a man named James Warner, went to within a few yards of the house occupied by Mrs O'bhaughnessy on Monday night, June 12th, Warner went away, and deceased, who was carrying a dress basket, walked on. That was the last. occasion on which she was seen alive outside of accused's house. The story told by the inmates of the house was that deceased came there shortly after 11 o'clock p.m., not on Monday, but on Tuesday, June 13th, and was then carrying a dress basket. She asked to bo admitted. Mrs Hassell opened the door to her, she said, and then went away, and Miss Holland wandered into a ‘ bedroom, prepared herself for .bod, Went to bed, and died within an hour. That was the explanation given to the police by the inmates of the house. /an improbable story.

Of course, that story was untrue on the face of it, and could be disproved without any difficulty at all, but it was not so easy to prove what actually took place. It was perfectly clear that the woman died of blood-poisoning caused by the performance upon her of an illegal operation,. and that she died about midnight on Tuesday, June 13th. The. medical evidence went to show strongly that the operation which caused her death could hare taken place on the Monday night,. and the death could have occurred on tno Tuesday. The post-mortem examination showed that' an illegal operation had- been' performed, and clumsily -performed. No one except the accused could say at what hour that operation was performed, but the medical men would say that it was not onlypossible but probable that the operation was performed the Mondaynight.

A SINISTER CIRCUMSTANCE. Had the - matter, rested there it would hare been bad enough, but it was quite clear that some person at the moment of death or immediately ' afterwards placed perchloride of mercury in deceased’s mouth. There was corrosion on the mouth, lips and throat, and the prosecution claimed to know now ’ who put the poison in the deceased’s mouth, and why it was done. The position, shortly put. was that a woman nad been murdered iu the house. The prosecution held that the principal -person, and the person .who performed the operation, was the accused. ’ • After the medical evidence • had been’ given the hearing of the case was .adjourned till to-morrow. •'