MURDER TRIAL

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26770, 13 May 1948, Page 8

MURDER TRIAL

YOUNG GIRL’S DEATH SECOND DAY OF HEARING NEW MEDICAL EVIDENCE PA.. WANGANUI, May A The case in which a married woman, Margaret Mary Theresa Loo, aged 26, is charged with the murder of her four-year-old daughter, Gale Kingi, at Ohakune last December, was continued in the Supreme Court here today and was unfinished when the court adjourned until to-morrow. New medical evidence was heard to-day. The case is being heard by Mr Justice Cornish and a jury. Mr N. R. Bain appeared for the Crown, and Mr G. j Skelton, of Auckland, for the accused Dr P. P. Lynch, pathologist, of Wellington, who carried out a post-mortem examination of the child’s body after it had been exhumed at the Raetihi Cemetery, said in evidence that the child’s head injury could have been caused by a heavy fall or a severe blow or blows. He excluded a fall because of the position of the injury and thought it had more likely been caused by blows. There were, howevef anomalies which made it difficult to form an accurate opinion on medical grounds as to the cause of death. Cross-examined, witness said he •could not exclude the possibility of accident.

Dr L. J. Jordan, of Ohakune, said that when the child was brought to his surgery it was in a desperate condition, deeply unconscious. In his opinion she was suffering from a depression of the brain due to an injury to the skull. The accused had told witness that the injury had been caused through the child falling when carrying a rocking horse down the steps at the back of the house. An operation was performed on the child, and that disclosed that there was no fracture of the skull In his opinion, death was due to asphyxia caused by an injury to the brain. He thought the child had received a hard blow. It was difficult to see how it could have been cauesd by a fall because of the position of the injury. Cross-examined by Mr Skelton, witness said he could not at the postmortem examination exclude the possibility of a fall. Dr Harle Mclntyre, who saw the child before the operation, said he had no doubt that there was an indentation in the skull and it was difficult to believe that the indentation could have been caused either by a fall or the child’s head being thrust against a chair.

Asked by Mr Skelton whether he would agree with Dr Lynch that the indentation in the skull was not more than the normal variation in the anatomy of the skull, witness said he would agree. William Thomas Blackmore, who for nine months was a neighbour of the accused, said that on one occasion, when the accused’s husband'was away and the accused was staying with witness and his wife, he thought he heard a scream and went to investigate. He said he found Gale Kingi lying naked on a bed, great weals on her body having been made by a strap. “ I picked up the strap and was going to give Mrs Loo a taste of it but changed my mind and went to work,” said witness. Mr Bain: And very wisely, too. Witness added that he had reported the attitude of the accused to the child, which he described as rather severe, to the police and the child welfare officer.

The case was adjourned till to-mor-row.