VERDICT OF GUILTY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26909, 22 October 1948, Page 6

VERDICT OF GUILTY

Abbotsford Murder Case

IMPRISONMENT FOR LIFE “All that I can say is that in my own heart it was a pure accident,” exclaimed John Fraser, aged 48, a labourer, of Roslyn, who was sen- s teheed by Mr Justice Kennedy in the Supreme Court last night to imprisonment for life with hard labour for the murder of Alexander Siegels, a storekeeper, of Abbotsford, on August 4 last. '"The jury retired at 5.10 p.m., and returned at 8.20 with its verdict, there being few members of the general public in court at . the time. The jury added that it endorsed the rider of the grand jury regarding the reintroduction of capital punishment, and also commended the action, immediately after the shooting, of Mr P. E. Todd, who found the deceased lying inside the house after Mrs Sickels had gone into his home after the tragedy. His Honor said the jury had discharged a special service and he would make some reference to the matter the following morning.

Continuing the evidence which he had commenced the previous day, the accused explained that the trouble with his wife in January of this year was due to the fact that he did not approve of her going out to work. She stayed away a week at that time. She then took a position in a private hotel, but witness and his son prevailed upon her to return . Asked to describe the events of August 4, witness said he had been “wandering about," and when passing McCarthy’s he remembered that he had to get a box for a rifle. He returned home about 4 p.m. and put the box in the cellar. When his son’s wife returned he told her to look after things as he was going a message. Witness explained that he went to the house of a previous witness, Mr Self, as he had decided to do some shooting and he had often borrowed Mr Self’s gun. Mr Self told hi mthat there was something wrong with the ejector, and witness and Mr Self had difficulty in assembling it. He put in a cartdrige to see if the ejector was working. He then took the gun to pieces again and carried it home.

“I began thinking about my wife," witness continued, “and I thought I would take the boy’s rifle and frighten the Sickelses into telling me where she was, but as I would have to take it through the kitchen, where my son and his wife would see. it, I decided to take the borrowed gun.” He had told them that he intended going to a euchre party at Maori Hill. On his way out he picked up the box with the gun and went to the Railway Station. “ When I arrived at Abbotsford,” witness continued, “ I went to the back of the Sickels’ house, which is just across the road from the station. I was still carrying the box. I opened the box and put the gun together in the dark. I knocked at the door and Mr Sickels came to the door and asked: ‘What do you want here? ’ Witness said: ■ Fo&‘ God’s sake tell me. Alex, where she is.’ At the same time I threw the gun up to catch it under my arm, and it went off. I got a terrible shock, and then I saw Sickels fall. A terrible feeling went through me and that is all I knew.” Wanted to Frighten Them Mr Adams: Was it your idea to take out the rifle without ammunition?— Yes. Witness explained that his real intention was to frighten them into telling him where his wife was. Witness said that he had no recollection of having broken in the sit-ting-room door after Sickels had been shot He denied that he made a statement. to a passenger on the 7.35 Mosgiel,'train on the night of the shooting thaK“ I have a job to do to-night, and then I’ll be all right" Witness also denied that he had ever used the expression to Sickels that “I’ll get you for this, Alex.” . Evidence that Mrs Sickels did not approve of her marriage with Fraser was given by the wife of the accused, Vera Blanche Fraser. • After they had been married 18 years. Mrs Sickels wrote to witness asking her to take Mr Fraser out to see her at Abbotsford. Several members of the family on that occasion had refused to speak to her husband. After witness left her husband in June of this year Mrs Sickels took witness to the city to look for rooms. Mr and Mrs Sickels had suggested the separation, Imd she paid the fare of witness to Christchurch. Mrs Fraser said that on’the Sunday after Mr Sickels had been buried she went to Abbotsford and had a conversation with Mrs Sickels. Discussing the shooting, witness asked her: "Didn’t you see him at all with the gun? ” and she replied: “ No. 1 heard the commotion and the voices, and locked the door and jumped out of the window.” Mrs Sickels, witness continued, called Fraser a "dirty, rotten swine,” and added: “Never you fear. He will never get at you again. With my last penny I will keep him behind the bars.” Addresses by Counsel Mr Guest, in his address to the jury, said that the defence was not even asking for a verdict of acquittal. ” You will;be asked to hold that Fraser did not mean to cause the death of Sickels, that he did not mean to injure him in a way likely to cause death, and that he did not have any unlawful intention in mind at the time the gun went off,” he said. “This is a case of deliberate, premeditated murder,” Mr Adams said in his address. “ The accused had formed the scheme of going to Abbotsford with a gun and there killing Alexander Sickels, and also, apparently, his wife. Maybe he went there to get information about his wife, but he had a lethal intention, and any verdict other than murder would be a miscarriage of justice.”