SHOCKING MURDER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23081, 6 January 1937, Page 11

SHOCKING MURDER

HOUSE RANSACKED YOUNG MAN CONVICTED “ You have been convicted of as shocking a murder as has been my lot to try. I can hold out no hope to you that the sentence will not be carried out.” - These stern words were spoken by Mr Justice Goddard at Durham Assizes recently to a young man, described as the “ black sheep of the family,” who had been found guilty of the brutal murder of his aunt by battering her head with a bottle. Tall, and with light brown wavy hair, the man, Christopher Jackson, aged 24, whose home is in Rotherham, but who had been lodging at Chester-le-street, was accused of murdering Mrs Harriet May Linney, aged 61, of Hetton street, Sunderland. In the witness box Jackson reeled as if he was about to faint, under the cross-examination of Mr C. Paley Scott, K.C., and when the final words of the death sentence were being pronounced, he again collapsed. With warders supporting him, he disappeared a few moments later down the staircase that led to the cells.

Outlining the circumstances of the tragedy, Mr Paley Scott mentioned that the dead woman carried on a business as a ready-money bookmaker, and at the end of a day would have anything from £5 to £2O in her possession. On the day she met her death her husband had gone to Carlisle races, and she was left alone in the house. That afternoon, Jackson, having borrowed 2s 6d from a Mr Harold Butler, saying he wanted to go to Catterick to draw some army pay, left his lodgings, carrying a mackintosh on his arm. DEAD IN POOL OF BLOOD About 8 o’clock that night Mrs Linney was found lying dead in a pool of blood in the kitchen, with terrible head injuries. Every room in the house had been ransacked. Counsel described how Jackson returned to his lodgings that night wearing the mackintosh buttoned up to the neck, although there was no rain and it was the month of June. Mr Scott submitted that whoever murdered Mrs Linney must have been bespattered with blood, and that a mackintosh, therefore, might hide tell-tale bloodstained clothes. On reaching his lodgings Jackson, said counsel, had a bath and changed his suit. He seemed very cheerful; gave his landlady, Mrs Bainbridge, over £2 toward what he oWed for board and lodgings, and paid other debts. After supper he played a game of cards. The police called on Jackson the following morning and found a bloodstained suit of clothes and £9 17s 4£d in his suitcase. Later, to Superintendent G. H. Cook, Jackson made the following statement: —

“ I came to Sunderland to try and get some money from my uncle but he was not there. I saw my aunt, Mrs Linney, and asked her if she could give me some money. She said I wasn’t worth any help, and she called me some names.

“I lost my temper and struck her. I hit her with my hands at first; then I struck her with a bottle. I had a look round' and got some money.” In the witness box Jackson, replying to questions by Mr H. L. P. Hallet, K.C., defending, denied that he called on his aunt—knowing his uncle would be away at the races—with the intention of committing a robbery. He also denied that he ever intended to kill her. REMARKABLE STORY

As a preface to a remarkable story of what he declared happened after his aunt had admitted him tc the house, Jackson stated that since he was eight years of age he had been convicted a number of times for stealing. In October, 1930, he was also sent to Borstal for burglary, and he was in the army when he was convicted for ware-house-breaking. His aunt, he said, refused to allow him to stay in the house until his uncle returned. She then “ called him names ” and tried t j get rid of him.

“ I started to pick up my mackintosh to leave the house,” Jackson went on, “ when she put her hand on me and pushed me on my way. She had been poking the fire up. and. she had a coal rake in her hand. She was excited, and she talked loudly and shouted. “ I turned to go, and I had shoved her away when she struck me across the back with the rake. I shoved her over toward the table, and I took up a bottle and struck her with it.” Jackson added that he did not remember what happened after he struck the first blow. He had no recollection of having ransacked the house. He admitted, however, that he took away some money which, he said, he found in an envelope on a sofa.

The jury took only 25 minutes to arrive at their verdict of guilty.