CHARGE OF MURDER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21405, 5 August 1931, Page 7

CHARGE OF MURDER

WOMAN FATALLY STABBED DEFENCE PLEADS INSANITY (Pee United Pbess Association.) AUCKLAND, August 4. The trial of Pahara -Rameka Kere (George Rameka), aged 39, on a charge of murdering Gwendoline Alice Johnson on the morning of June 24, was continued in the Supreme Court to-day before Mr Justice Smith and a jury. Two doctors skid the wounds in the ;woman’s body suggested they were the 'work of a man in a frenzy. The accused’s movements and his remarks after the tragedy were described by several witnesses on the lines of the evidence given -in the lower court. Mrs Kura Murphy (his cousin) said that before he collapsed from the effects of poison he gave her a letter for hie father, saying: “My girl has turned me down after I gave her £24 and my last £7.” He also said that it was the end of hie life, and “ I have killed someone." : Cross-examined, witness said that Rameka was one of 17 children, only two of whom were alive. She had heard that a relative of the accused in Taranaki had killed a girl with’ 1 a lawn tennis racket, and that another relative in the north of Auckland had committed a serious offence. The interpreter said the accused, in the letter to his father, said that he was tired of life, and made requests concerning the disposition of his body. The case was described as a rather extraordinary one by Mr Noble, in opening the defence. The fact that the accused had killed the woman could not be disputed. “You have an eye-witness,”said counsel, “ but it does not follow that the accused is guilty of the crime of murder." It was the reason of a man which made him accountable for his actions, said counsel, and the deprivation of reason acquitted him. of a crime. If a man was provoked into a sudden frenzy so that he lost all self-control, then the jury would be justified in finding him guilty of manslaughter only. The evidence was that the I woman had been hacked about in a maniacal fury. When the accused |was 15 i years old he went to the war in France, and there, in two and a-half years’ service, he had his health permanently injured- Ever since then he had been in and out of hospital. “ This man and this unhappy woman,” continued Mr Noble, “were the closest lovers. He did not know that she was married until after the tragedy.” Evidence would be called to show that there was talk of marriage between them. Then, without any warning, there came sudden disillusionment and the accused’s dreams of love and happiness came clattering about his ears. The treatment that Rameka received had so worked on his mind that he -was practically driven to a state of delirium. He told the woman that he was going to kill him-, self, and she replied: “Go away, you nigger. We do not want to have anything more to do with you.” If there was one thing more than another that the Maoris were proud of, said Mr Noble, it was that they were not “niggers.” To them that name was an unpardonable insult Rameka went into a frenzy and ■he remembered nothing more about it until, in the Auckland Hospital, he was*- charged with murder. He certainly did not know the nature and quality of his act, nor that what he was doing was wrong. A second ground of defence was that by a sudden insult the accused was so provoked that he lost control ,of himself. . ■ _ - Several witnesses gave evidence that on occasions the accused acted strangely. A fellow-worker said he seemed " a bit queer.” The hearing was adjourned until tomorrow..