ALLEGED CHILD MURDER

Otago Witness, Issue 3336, 20 February 1918, Page 25

ALLEGED CHILD MURDER

THE ADDINGTON CASE. . WINIFRED CARRICK ON TRIAL. CHRISTCHURCH, February 18. The trial of Winifred Carrick, aged 27 years, oil a charge of having murdered her eon, Donald Lewis Carrick, aged three years, at Addington, en • or about December 8, 1917, was commenced in the Supreme Court to-day before Mr Justice Chapman. Mr S. G. Raymond, K.C., prosecuted for the Crown, and Mr O. T. J. Alpers appeared for the accused. The facts of the case, as outlined by the Crown Prosecutor, may be briefly recapitufatod as follow:—In the early morning of December 8 last Richard Thomas Burns, labourer, residing at 31 Clifton street, Addington, whose residence was a licensed home for infants, which was conducted by his wife (Ada Louisa Burns), found the body cf the child, Donald Lewis Carrick, on its back among some potato plants. The head was battered in, and subsequently a blood-stained spanner and spado were found near where the body lay. The child was an inmate of the home, and 10s per week was being paid for its maintenance. The movements of the mother of the child (the accused), who had served a term of imprisonment for abandoning it when an infant by leaving it in a treo by the riverside, aroused suspicion, and she was arrested and committed for trial at the magisterial proceedings heard on December 21. The child was born on January 11, 1915, and was a foundling. There were 13 peoplo in the Burns home at the time of the murde*— namely, Mr and Mrs Burns and their five children, a boarder, and five other children who had been boarded out. The last seen of -the child was at 9 o'clock on the night of December 7. Mrs Burns had been

out, and returned towards midnight Nobody had left the house during tho night. After serving her sentence in Addingtori Gaol for abandoning the child, accused was released on January 30, 1917. Subsequently she went to Wellington, where her parents lived. During tho following September accused fcolcK a Mrs Green that she wanted to make arrangements for the adoption of the child. She stated that the police were worrying her in regard to maintenance, but that she would not pay it, preferring to re-enter-Addington Prison, Mr Raymond referred to - the proceedings against accused in the Magistrate's Court for maintenance, and traced her movements as far as could bo ascertained to the time of and subsequent to the tragedy. On the night of the murder accused did not sleep in her bed, and had not given a satisfactory account of her movements on that night. She had aleo made a statement during the dav cf December 7 that, she was Lining to Wellington, but had not'done so. When Detective Gibson asked accused where she spent the night of December 7 she replied: "That is my business." A striped dress £ would play a part in the identification. After her "arrest it was 1 found that certain garments > were very damp, and that a pair of stockings were in a muddy condition and contained grass seeds, which were identical with seeds taken from Burns's residence. The Crown contended that accused had remold her boots and carried out the crime in her stockinged feet. The reason put forth for the commission of tlie crime was financial embarrassment on the part of accused. Dr Champtaloup. of Dunedin. stated that a spade and spanner sent to him for bacteriological examination had given a reaction of human blocd. Dr Scott described the child's injuries, and said that from the depression in the soil under the boy's head it must have been dealt a fairly heavy blow. Annie B. Cox, manager of the receiving home, deposed to receiving the child as ft foundling, and to accused's vieit to the home: while Christina B. Uren, an attendant at the home, gave evidence as to having taken the child to Burns's and having seen accused loitering- about the home and near the tram on the occasion. Other evidence was given as to accused, after much reluctance, consenting- to a maintenance order, and the previous, finding _of tho child in a hollow willow tree at Dallington in February. 1915.. Mrs Burns and members of her family deposed to it being usual to leave the back door unlocked and the window of .the boy's bedroom up. Tho court adjourned till next day.