THE BARABA TRAGEDY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2105, 28 June 1894, Page 13

THE BARABA TRAGEDY.

SffiNTENOED TO DEATH. Press Association— By Telegraph— Copyright. Sydney, June 21. The case for the Crown ia the Baraba murder trial has closed. Camming, one of the accused, when called on for his defence, protested his entire innocence of the crime, and said that before God the following was the true state of the case : — " Two men came to him and asked the loan of a horse, intimating that they intended to stick up the bank in the township, and in return they would let him stand in in dividing the spoil. They also took ak ; racehorse without his knowledge. He met the two men after he returned to Baraba by appointment, when they told him they had stuck up the bank and the manager had been shot. They asked him to pilot them to the roughest country in the district, which he did. The men killed the horses, and he only removed the brands to screen himself. JI Lees, tbe otber prisoner, also made a statement. He said :— " I have knowledge of one man's death, and do not want to have a second life on my hands. I therefore declare Cumming to be entirely innocent. His .Statement is true. I was the man who borrowed the horee-i from him, and told him we intended to rob the bank, and would let him have a cut in at the, money. He was to plant the money, and send my share to Sydney when the affair had blown over." Lees had not finished bis statement when the telegraph office closed. June 22, Lee, one of the men charged with tbe murder of Mr M'Kay, manager of the bank at Barraba, completed bis statement without admitting more than would clear Camming, and by picking a few holes in the police chain of evidence concerning his own identity. Counsels' addressee to the jury are proceed* log. At the Bmaba murder trial counsel for Lee contended there was no evidence that be took the manager's life. ar:d suggested that it was bigbly probable that in the scuffle the manager got hold of the pistol and shot himself accidentally. He asked the jury not to attach too much importance to Lee's statement, as he probably saw little chance for himself, 'and naturally tried to save bis companion's neck. The Crown Prosecutor stated there was no trace of a third party's horse when a search was made for the murderers. The Judge, in summing up, held that Camming was accessary before and after the crime. The jury found both men guilty of marder. Counsel for Camming raised the point for the decision of the Full Court that the judge was wrong in directing the jury that there was sufficient evidence of Cumming being an accessory. He contended no evidence had been adduced to show that Cumming was even at the bank when the crime was committed. Comminer, when asked if he had anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed on him, replied that notbiag could rob him of the self -consciousness that he was not present when M'Kay was killed. The judgo had influenced the jary against him, but he would meet bis fate as an innocent man. Sentence of death was then passed on both men, Camming saying to the judge, " And may the Lord have mercy on your soul for sentencing an innocent man to death." June 24. Lee, one of the Barraba murderers, requested to see Mrs M'Kay, wife of the

" M " M *'"*™* MW "'^'^ — — — "" " ■ ■■ ■— w victim. Ha told her that her husband had acted bravely but foolishly in defending the property of the bank. He admitted shooting M'Kay accidentally during the straggle, and asked her to exert her influence to save Cummings.