MURDER TRIAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24833, 5 February 1942, Page 6

MURDER TRIAL

MOA FLAT TRAGEDY VERDICT EXPECTED TO-DAY Evidence called by the Crown in the trial of Charles-Henry Flaxman, a farm labourer, aged 34, charged with the murder of his wife, Marion Beatrice Flaxman, aged 25, at Moa Flat on November 18, 1941, was concluded in the Supreme Court yesterday, before Mr Justice Kennedy and a jury. The Crown Prosecutor, Mr F. B. Adams, gave his final address to the jury, and defending counsel, Mr O. G. Stevens (associated with Mr C H. S. Stevens), was making his address when the court adjourned until to-day. When counsel concludes his address the judge will sum up, and the jury will retire to consider its verdict.

When the trial was continued yesterday morning, John Millar Garden, a sheep farmer, of Moa Flat, and a neighbour of the Flaxmans, completed the story of his experience with the accused from the stage at which he (Garden) and Andrew John Hodgkin, Flaxman's employer, took Flaxman into Hodgkin's house. On the way, he said. Flaxman grasped a rifle in the hall,' but Hodgkin took it from him. Then, in the sitting room, he attempted to grab a piece of wood and a poker. He cold witness that he was awakened by smoke, that he was sorry to have made "such a muck of .things in the cottage," but that something snapped in his brain and he had to get outside. He said that people would think him a failure and a cad, and added that "you do not know what I have done." ! ' He gave witness directions concerning the baby, which, he said, he would never see again.

Neighbour Receives Letter Two days later witness received a letter from Flaxman, whom he and Hodgkin took to hospital. It expressed appreciation of the very gre*t kindness which the Gardens had shown to him and his child. He had been told the real truth the day before, the letter continued, and it was a staggering blow. He hoped the Gardens still believed in him, and he wrote of the great kindness which had been shown to him by everyone—the police, the hospital staff, and everyone else. In reply to Mr Stevens, witness said he had found Flaxman very kind to and very fond of his wife and child. He was considered a hard-working man, and he had been very good to witness and his wife. When Flaxman came back to his wife's body outside the cottage, he was mumbling and muttering words which witness could not distinguish. He was making moaning, meaningless noises, and was acting as though he were at a loss "to know what to do. While in Hodgkin's house, he complained of having had a lot of worry and having been unable to sleep. At times before the tragedy, witness concluded, Flaxman was inclined to exaggerate his actions when working with other men. He would drive sheep and handle implements boisterously and roughly, for example, and he would come running to people in great eagerness to tell them any scrap of news he had heard. He was a good worker, but he was considered by those with whom he worked to be perhaps "a trifle cranky." Witness knew that Flaxman suffered from severe' headaches which affected his eyes. At such times, he looked ill, and he would take four or five headache tablets at a time. A story similar in many details was told by Agnes Millar Garden, wife of the • previous witness.. • She described her work with .her husband at the cottage andv her attention ( to; the baby afterward. The verandah light of her home "could be seen from Flaxman's COttSISG ; »'*'■* *' •■■-''''- To Mr '€. H. S. Stevens, witness said that the Flaxmans appeared to be- living happily, 'together. to bevery proud of his wife and also of the;-child. \ The accused was a good worker, said Andrew John Hodgkin, a sheep farmer of Moa 'Flat.: in: whose employment Flaxman : had been since July,. .1935. Witness .said he paid Flaxman .£3 i 10s a a bonus and pyertimjßvduring the• busy seasons and- allowed .him the cottage free and free meat and vegetables. He paid Mrs Flaxman £1 a week for giving him one hot meal a day during the week and doing his mending, and some 'of his'Slashing;.; ■ ■Accused Distraint \>-'

When. the accused wakened witness while the cottage was oh fire, he was distraught.. He said the cottage was burning with his wife inside and that he thought the fire had been caused by a defect in the electrical, installation. Witness described his hopeless attempt to save the cottage. When he saw Flaxman afterwards he (Flaxman) had blood on his throat, and told witness that he should keep a sharp butcher's knife. When they went back to witness's house Flaxman grasped an unloaded rifle and expressed the wish to be allowed to end his life. He was in a state of nervous collapse, and was shaking and speaking in a quavering, high-pitched voice. Investigations at the scene of the tragedy and the finding of a butcher's knife, the head of a tomahawk from which the handle had been burnt, and other articles was given by Constable W. Coatsworth, of Tapanui, and Detective R.. J. A. Berry. Detective Sergeant T. Y. Hall and Chief Detective T. E." Holmes gave further evidence of police investigations, and submitted statements made to them by accused, giving his account of happenings covering the period of the alleged crime, and claiming that he must have had " a black-out."

Mental Experts' Evidence

Dr Malcolm Brown, superintendent of the Seaeliff Mental Hospital, said he examined the accused on two occasions and formed the opinion that the accused had not suffered, and did not suffer, from any mental disease. Assuming that he committed the crime, the accused was not suffering from any mental disease at that time. He knew what he was doing, knew the nature and quality of the act, and knew that he was doing wrong. The Crown Prosecutor: Is it possible that the accused committed this crime and has no memory of it? —I think he has a memory of it. To defending counsel, witness said that, -acting on the assumption that the accused committed the crime, it was his opinion that the accused must have lost control.

"By that I do not mean he did not know what he was doing," witness told the Crown.

His Honor: You mean, in effect, that he succumbed to temptation?—Yes. If there were signs of consciousness of guilt—such as the incident with the baby, telling the neighbour to "get out of it," and the accused's halfhearted attempt at rescuing his wife —how would they affect your memory?—They strengthen my opinion that there was genuine memory. Crown's Case Closed

Dr Robert Turnbull Hay, deputy superintendent of the Seacliff Mental Hospital, said that, after examining the accused six times, he was unable to find any evidence of insanity, or loss of memory. There were no grounds for supposing that/assuming the accused killed his wife, he did not know what he was ..doing, and did not know the act. was wrong. In cross-examination, witness said he '.would not like to give an opinion on the extent on which loss of control would affect intent to commit a crime. Closing the Crown's case, Mr Adams said that by this time the jury should have ho doubt that Flaxman killed his wife. She was slaughtered mercilessly, beaten to death by a tomahawk, while lying defenceless in bed. Crimes such as this should be ader ,-ately punished and called by their l.jht names, and in this case it was murder. Moreover, the accused tried to cover up his crime by burning his home. In his statements the accused made no mention of the murder, but forgot nothing else. Doubtless some heat of passion led up to the murder, but all the accused's actions after the crime were those of a guilty person, ; who knew what he had done and that for his own sake he must conceal it.

Address for Defence

"Now at last something can be said in the accused's defence," said Mr O. G. Stevens, addressing the jury. "At. the outset I want it understood that there will be no suggestion by the defence that Mrs Flaxman was anything but a woman of the highest moral character, a good wife, and a good mother. A better wife the accused could not have had, and people who would believe ill of the woman will not hesitate to say the same things about the man. . " The defence does not suggest that it was not the accused who slayed his wife," counsel continued. "We do say, however, that he did not have any intent to kill, and we, therefore, seek a reduction of the charge from one of murder to manslaughter. There can be for the accused no escape from a charge of manslaughter, but on the evidence there can be no conviction on the charge of murder. "If the accused is the cruel, brutal assassin the Crown would have you believe him to be, where is the evidence of his cold planning and preparation for his crime; in fact, where is the motive? " counsel asked. " The accused, we have been told, is a kindly fellow, a good worker, well spoken of, and there is no suggestion of dishonesty. There has been evidence that he was worried, and that there was a taint of crankiness. "There was no preparation for his crime, no concealment of it, and no flight from it," counsel added. "The last thing he would have done in a planned murder would have been to call the neighbours before the cottage was ablaze from end to end, so that any would-be rescuer would have no hope of climbing through a window. But he called the.neighbours before the fire had really started to destroy the evidence of the dastardly affair that had occurred in the cottage." At this stage the court was adjourned until 10 o'clock this morning.