A WELLINGTON MURDER.

NZ Truth, Issue 483, 19 September 1914, Page 2

A WELLINGTON MURDER.

CHINAMAN DONE TO DEATH. WONG CHING'S CRUEL FATE-BATTERED TO A PULP.

Every Chinaman Is either by habit or occupation a washerman or a fruit and vegetable monger. Wong Ching. was no exception to the rule, and he presided over the destinies of a little establishment which boasted the, adornment, "100 Adelaide-road," over its lintel. There he carried on a fruit and vegetable emporium on a modest scale. He was, as most' Chinamen are, an inoffensive and unaggresslvc person, whose sole object m lifo was to sell enough oranges and cabbages to ensure him the tiny competence that suffices for the average Celestial. His establishment was by no means a pretentious one, and his stock, upon its roughly-boarded shelves, did not' spell undue prosperity. Yet, for the sake of his few hard-earned pence, Wong Ching was ' BRUTALLY DONE TO DEATH on Friday night last, or, at latest, .early on Saturday morning, by some inhuman fiend whose identity has, so I far, baffled the police. ' I ... Briefly stated, the facts of the case [ are that on Saturday morning, about t one o'clock, \Cons.table Wilson, while on his round m Adelaide-road, noticed I a light burning m Wong Ching's premises, and, peeping through the 111-' hung window-blind at the front, he saw a man's legs on the floor. The front door was fastened, but, on proceeding to the rear of the establishment^ the constable found that the back door was ajar, and, entering the house, he found Wong Ching LYING IN A POOL OF BLOOD on the floor of the kitchen, with his head battered into an almost shapeless i travesty of the human form divine. He at once set the long arm of the law m motion, and Detective-Sergeant ! Cassells, . Dr. Henry, and Sergeant Trehey, of the Mount Cook station, were quickly upon the scene of the: tragedy. A medical examination show-, ed that the unfortunate Chinaman's head had been practically battered to a pulp. A long and deep cut extended from the right ear tp'the eye, there was a further wound above the right eye, and another one still above the left eye. Almost any one of these would have caused death, and the injuries had apparently been inflicted by some heavy, .blunt instrument. This is presumed to. have been an iron bar, weighing five or six pounds, which was found ' SPATTERED WITH BLOOD upon the counter of the shop. This death-dealing, bludgeon was about a foot, and a-half lphg£ an inch and ahalf wide, and nearly half '.an inch thick. It was covered -with blood and hair,; and was, obviously, the instrument" that his assailant 'had used m his murderous attack upon the Chinaman. It is evident that the murder was not committed^ without a struggle of some sorjt, for one of the temporary shelves for the stock m the shop, had be,en overturned a;nd its .contents, ( were-' strewn about .the floor. . -{. The shop where this pitiable, tragedy occurred •: is , situated ; upon the main road, and. has attached to it on one side a^ baker's shop, and, on the other, an empty shop, which is at present tenanted by a. .man -who baches m it. It was Wong Ching's custom to close his' shop .on Saturday .nights at about 9.30, and it is significant that' on the night ' df the 'miirdei* his. neighbors noticed that bis shop was shut earlier than usual.- •According; "to the man who occupies the adjacent shop, at about midnight he was awakened by the sound of blows m Wong. Ching's establishment, but ther.e was nothing serious enough to warrant his intervention, . . .*■ "THE SOUND OF BELTING," as ,he describes it, hot being uncommoh m Chinese quarters. He attached no importance to tho matter until he was awakened by the police some hours later, m the small hours of tho morning. The murderer had evidently been after money, and made both his entry and exit by tho back way, as some of the boards on the back fence show unmlstakablo traces of blood stains at tho top of the boarding, although tho yard Itself is free from corresponding stains. There is something more than a' suspicion that the crime was premeditated, at least the robbery if not the actual murder that was |ts fatal accompaniment. There is strong circumstantial evidence also that the perpetrator of this abominable outrage' was Intimately acquainted with the premises and with Wong Ching's habits. Thero is A SINISTER SUGGESTION about the fact that the man next door, who Is living m the empty shop, was the possessor of a somewhat ferocious dog which was In the habit of guarding the neighborhood by word of mouth for half a. mile around, and that this dog disappeared the day before tho murder, and subsequent efforts to ascertain Its whereabouts have been unsuccessful. Certainly it Is neither m the destructor or the morgue. The time of the tragedy, It is also surmised, must have been about midnight, and m support of this suggestion tho neighbors of an adjacent house report that 1 their dog, usually a qulot animal, aroused them and other people close at hand by furious barking about midnight. It Is further presumed that TUB BLOOD-STAINED MURDERER made his escape from tho back, and, instead of returning Into Adelaide-road, climbed over the fence into tho rear of a cottage facing upon King-street and worming his », way through here, reached King-street, which Is a narrow lane running parallel to Adelaide-road. An examination of the fence lends color to the supposition, for tho top beam Is broken "away and bloodstained, whilst the earth Ims also been freshly disturbed. The police, however, are disposed to regard the dog Incident us bavin? been purely colni cldenco, and are of opinion that tho murder waa committed earlier m tho evening, probably just before the unfortunate Chinaman was about toclose his fihop. They assume that the man's assailant was somebody who KNEW THE RUN OF THE ROPES and, anticipating that Friday night's takings would bo substantial, decided to rob him about closing time. Conjecture going further, suggests that tho murder was not deliberately

planned, but that the assailant, • meeting with a resistance that he had not anticipated on entering the shop, struck the Chinaman over the head to silence him, without any intent of killing. The circumstantial evidence available goes to support this theory, for Wong Ching was evidently murdered m the shop, and the murderer having closed the shop door hurriedly made a hasty search of the till, overlooking m his "hurry a sum of money m a bottom drawer, and leaving a few pence and a stray shilling m the cups of the other till, which are also thickly blood-stained. The body was then evidently removed from the shop to the kitchen, by a route which is marked by clearly- defined blood stains. The theory of ' UNINTENTIONAL, MURDER is farther supported by the fact "(hat the victim -of this diabolical assault •was of <a most inoffensive nature. >■ He bad been m business at Adelaide-road for seven or eight years and latterly his business had languished. He lived alone and was not m the habit of leaving much money on the premises, except on 4 Friday night, which was naturally the best night of the week m his trade. It is regarded as practically certain that only one man was' engaged m the outrage, and that the crime was one of impulse rather than 1 pne'of deliberation. "* The police are, of course, reticent' upon the matter, but it is understood that they have a clue to the mystery surrounding this act Of wanton wickedness, and that an arrest will be made at an early date. The murdered "man was about fifty years of age" and had no relatives m the country except a grown-up son of three, or four and twenty years of age.