AN ABRUPT END

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8559, 23 October 1913, Page 7

AN ABRUPT END

TRIAL OF BOY FOR MURDER. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright MELBOURNE, October 22. The trial of the boy Charles Freeman for the murder at Warparilla of a boy named John Anderson came to an abrupt end. The jury decided that Freeman was unable to plead. He was ordered to be detaihed in gaol during the Governor’s pleasure. OThe accused boy, aged fourteen years, is almost deaf and dumb, and is mentally deficient. Anderson was fifteen years of age. When arrested, Freeman indicated that he (Anderson) and a third boy had been bird-nesting, and that the last-named deliberately shot Anderson while he was up a tree, and then severed the head from the body. Later, when Freeman still stuck to his story, the police, with a view to testing its credibility, brought Freeman into the presence of a boy attending the same school as Anderson. Freeman, hy signs, indicated that this was the boy who had murdered Anderson. The boy was not perturbed; he laughed, and said, “I was driving sheep the day of the murder.” The police fully verified this statement, and the boy was not detained. At tbe inquest, a schooboy gavo evidence that Freeman and Anderson had had a fight at school a year ago, and that Freeman had made signs indicating that he would shoot Anderson and cut his throat.]