MURDER TRIAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23953, 31 October 1939, Page 8

MURDER TRIAL

THE PATIENCE CASE CONTENTIONS BY DEFENCE ADDRESSES TO JURY JUDGE COMMENCES SUMMING-UP (Per United Press Association; CHRISTCHURCH, Oct. 30. - The whole case for the defence would be made up of criticism of the case for the Crown, said the Crown Prosecutor (Mr A. T. Donnelly), beginning his address in the trial of Arthur John Patience on a charge of murdering his wife, in the Supreme Court this morning. The evidence of the Crown was the only evidence before the jury. Mr Donnelly said, and it had not been attacked or shaken in any serious way by the defence. The Crown said the death of the woman was proved by facts which were inconsistent with any innocent explanation. If it were held that the body was that of Mrs Patience, then the case was proved. If the body was not that of Mrs Patience, where was she? Patience’s own actions supported the Crown’s case. Mr Donnelly continued. When told that the inquest on the body was to be held, he said he did not think he would bother to go. The Crown held that Patience had strangled his wife on the night of October 4. 1938, buried her by the beach, and left her. Patience’s relationship with Mrs • Chapman was peculair in that his wife knew of it, and Mrs Chapman wanted Patience in a position where he could eventually marry her. The Crown held that Patience had brutally killed his wife, buried her. tried to brazen it, and lied to the police, her relations and neighbours. He had almost escaped, but his wife had returned from the dead, and he had not escaped. Crown’s Case Attacked For the defence, Mr R. A. Young said the Crown held that Patience, normally a peaceful man. had suddenly become a killer. The Crown held that the body was that of Mrs Patience, but later he would hold that not sufficient proof had been brought as to that. What man could describe the body of his wife in other than general terms, asked Mr Young. In addition to Steve Patience, who gave evidence, the Patiences had another son, Jack, living about 40 miles from Kaikoura, but he was not called to see the body. Patience could not identify the body, and Steve was uncertain. Why was Jack not called? He was not called because a negative answer would have crippled the police case, contended Mr Young. Mrs George, a close friend of her aunt, had spoken of the “ fineness ” of the body, whereas the doctors remarked on its plumpness, Mr Young continued. It was impossible that Mrs Southern could have seen in the skull the features of her daughter. Surely, under the circumstances, she had persuaded herself that she was being taken to see the body of her daughter. The Crown prosecutor had thrown down a challenge when he spoke of two mysteries,, but it was for the Crown to prove its case. Where’was the ring on the finger or the mark where it had been? That was a decisive factor in identification. If that was Mrs Patience’s body, was she murdered, Mr Young asked. That was the next question. Because of Mi's Chapman the jury was asked to believe that motive was proved, but Patience and his, wife had lived happily for 20 years. All the police could bring up was that Mrs Patience had once reproached her husband for not taking her out in the car. Patience and Mrs Chapman had committed adultery, but that was not a crime. There seemed to be no reason why the alliance should have ended without the death of Mrs Patience. The union between Patience and Mrs Chapman being for consummation of desires alone, the motive for. murder was missing. “Only Theories” Mr Young said the Crown supplied no real facts —only theories. It must be unique for a jury to be asked to enter a verdict of guilty in a case of murder where the cause of death was not known. Usually the body in a murder case showed signs of the cause of death, but in this case there were only theories. Admitting that ribs could be broken in many ways, the doctors said it could be done by kneeling on them. If a man had broken nine ribs he must have jumped on the body, but that was not enough to have caused death, said they. They searched further and -found a dent in the trachea. In spite of the violence alleged, however, there was not even a bruise on the throat. The chest was not bruised, and no cartilages in the throat were broken. Such an indentation could only have been made by a man holding his thumb there for hours. The whole of the evidence pointed to the fact that the Mentation was caused after death. The Crown’s case, Mr Young said, admitted of only two hypotheses one that the accused murdered his wife at the house and then carried her away, and the other that he murdered her at the gate to the camp, but even near the cate there was a house, and the noise would have been heard. No sane man would have attempted such a thing. The risk of detection was enormous. Next morning neighbours went to the house, but there was no sign of disorder and no bloodstains. The attitude of the people at the camp was to talk about Mrs Patience’s disappearance, and yet why was it that not one person there reported it to the police. He submitted that it was because they simply thought she had left camp. The bloodstains on the road to Happy Valley gate had been explained by an injury suffered by a small boy at the camp when he was on that road. Mr Young said the police hafi said that the digging was abandoned when they believed all practicable excavations had been done, and yet they found no body. Quite obviously Mrs Patience was not buried in those spoil heaps or she would have been found. An Alternative Theory Mr Young said that there was no onus on the defence to bring an alternative theory to the Crown's, but he would suggest one. He suggested that Mrs Patience was distressed about her inability to satisfy all her husband’s desire_s and about his association with Mrs Chapman, and taking £4B which she found he had put away she walked along the beach towards Taratuhi, intending to stay the night with friends there before catching a bus to go either north or south. She would not want other women to know she was going. It was quite a reasonable journey to Taratuhi for her, only a short distance, and she probably walked along the beach. She apparently fell on to boulders or rocks and died from exposure. Then the sea may have covered her up with spoil or spoil may have been washed down over her from above. This was at a place where the police did not excavate. The marks on her arms would then be those of her stockingette frock and the ligature marks could have been similarly caused, perhaps by the tapes on her coat. This alternative was far more feasible than the story the Crown would have the jury believe, but. even if the jury did not accept it, still the defence must succeed if the Crown’s story was not convincingly proved. Certainly it had not been proved. Mr Young reminded the jury that

whatever might have been said on election platforms the law concerning the penalty for a man found guilty of murder was unchanged. Judge’s Summing Up His Honor gave part of his summing up before the adjournment was taken. He impressed upon the jury the absolute onus upon the Crown to prove the guilt of the prisoner beyond all reasonable doubt. He reviewed shortly the law’s definitions of murder, manslaughter and justifiable or excusable homicide. He spoke also and quoted English judges upon the subject of circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial evidence, he said, was like a series of stepping stones upon which the jury could venture to take a footing only if it was absolutely convinced that they were sound and secure. The Crown claimed that the stepping stones in this case were safe ones, and the defence that they were not. _ In the argument over the identification of the _ body there was the direct type of evidence proffered, and also circumstantial evidence. His Honor said the jury must weigh all this evidence very carefully and sift the merits of every part of it. There were four main points for the jury’s consideration. They were the identification of the body, the cause of death, the question (if homicide was proved) of whether Patience killed his wife, and then, if he killed her. the question whether the circumstances under which he became responsible for her death were those amounting to murder or manslaughter. His Honor’s summing up was not completed when the adjournment was taken until to-morrow morning.