CHARGE OF MURDER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22065, 22 September 1933, Page 6

CHARGE OF MURDER

DUAL TRAGEDY RECALLED WOMAN FOUND DEAD IN FLAT (Per United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, September 21. George Edward James, an engine driver, aged 57, who was rescued from drowning at Thorndon on June 30, the day on which Mrs Cecilia Smith and her seven-year-old sou were found lead in tragic circumstances, appeared before Mr E. Page, S.M.,- to-day charged with murdering Mrs Smith. The hearing of evidence will probably take two days. The accused, who is very deaf, was allowed to leave the dock and sit close to the witness box.

Senior Sergeant Dinnie produced a number of photo; raphs of the flat at Ohiro road referred to as James’s Flat, and of Mrs Smith and her son. Among the exhibits was a photo of a bloodstain on. a piece of newspaper, and a lantern slide showing a rubber heel, which, it was stated, coincided with the bloodstain.

Plans of the flat showing bloodstains were produced by Philip Rex Rose, and plans of the district by Harold William Palkner, chief surveyor of the Wellington City Council, who gave details of distances by various routes from the fiat to a fisherman’s hut on the beach at Shelly Bay road, and from there to shed 45 at Thorndon.

Eileen Jean M‘Kenzie, who had authority to let the flat, said the accused called on her on the evening of June 6. She understood him to say he had got married on Monday, arid wanted uis wife to see the flat. The rent was 15s 6d a week. The accused moved in the following day, and paid a week in advance. On June 8 she met a woman going up the stairs with a little boy, addressed her as Mrs James, and asked how she liked the flat. The woman said she was not . Mrs James, and witness had since learned that she was Mrs Smith. About a week later witness saw the woman again. The woman said she was not Mrs James, but was going to get married on Monday. She said James had a lot of worry and had a court case, and they were not going to get married until it was fixed. Telford Richard Williams, who occupied one of the flats, said he knew the couple as Mr and Mrs Jaines, and thought the boy was their son. On the morning of June 30 he was awakened by a scream from a woman, and the boy gave a short scream or cry. - The woman gave another scream. There was no cry for help in any shape or form; and therefore he took no notice. He went down to the bathroom, and as he closed the door he heard the woman say: “Oh, George, go for'.a doctor. I am done.” He heard no more after that. He was sure it was Mrs Smith who said that. He did not hear the accused speak at all, nor the boy. It was at 7.30 that witness heard the scream. At 8.30 or 8.45 he saw the accused and the boy going up the steps towards the Ohiro road. The accused was holding the boy by the hand.

Witness went on to tell how he communicated with the police at 6 p.m. and the finding of the woman dead. A blood-stained table knife was found near a chair in the room. Later he .identified the body of the boy Noel at the morgue. Richard James Brown, student, of Wellington College; who lived next door to the flat, said he left home at 8.30 that morning. lie saw a small boy come out of a gate and a man come after wheeling a bicycle. As witness passed the boy said, “Are we going for a ride on the bike, daddy?” the man replied in the affirmative. He saw them later in Willis street. On September 18 he picked out the accused in an identification parade. Similar evidence was given by Albert George Clifford. This witness,; however, had been unable to identify the man at the police station. Leslie Richard Moore, tramway motorman, who said he had taken particular notice of a man and boy on a bicycle in Crawford road, also said at the identification parade that he identified the accused as the man. Witness remembered the date because the kiddie was laughing, and it reminded him that it was his own kiddie’s birthday and was pay day. Francis John Gay, describing the finding of the boy’s body, said that when gathering mussels in the vicinity of a fisherman’s hut he saw a body on the rocks. The tide was going out. The body was lying at high water mark. Constable Fitzgibbon said the body was found at 12.30 p.m. Apparently the boy had been dead for three or four hours.

Ralph Dry described rescuing James from the harbour. , James, who was pulled out with a rope, was underneath the wharf clinging to a pile. His coat and hat were found on the wharf, together .with a letter. This letter, which was read to the court, was as follows:—“Friday. Mrs Rouse,—Nancy, you see what you have brought me to now, If you, had only have gave me and Badge a little sum of money to start us up in married life the % same as me and your man did for you when you was married it would have gave me a chance. But no. You want the lot—home and everything, and turn me out into the street. You had everything you wanted when we took you into our life as a baby and gave you everything. I love Badge and her boy and I am sorry to have come to an end like this, but it is all through your selfish ways that I did this. You was happy; it did not matter about me, once your father.'* So this is th« last words from me, your brokenhearted father, G. James.” The case was adjourned till to-morrow. The drowning of a five-year-old boy at Point Halswell early on June 30 and the rescue of his father from the water at Thorndon in the afternoon led tho police to visit a flat in Wellington, where they found the dead body of the child’s mother. While gathering mussels in the vicnity of Point Halswell shortly after midday, a man found the body of the child on the rocks at about high-water mark. Apparently the boy had been drowned some time earlier in the morning. The boy’s parents were not known until several hours later. About 1.30 p.ra. cries were heard from a man struggling in the water near the Thorndon breastwork. Men nearby pulled him out in an unconscious condition, and he was taken to hospital, where he was identified as George James. The police connected neither the child or the man with the house at Ohiro road until an occupant of the top flat, hearing, of a man names James being found in the harbour, rang the station. When a constable arrived at the bottom flat he found the dead body of Mrs James.