AUCKLAND MURDER TRIAL

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18234, 1 November 1933, Page 11

AUCKLAND MURDER TRIAL

GREY LYNN TRAGEDY QUESTION OF INSANITY EVIDENCE FOR DEFENCE (Per Press Association.), AUCKLAND, this day. When the trial of John Hubert Edwards, on a murder charge, was resumed, two daughters of the deceased, Mrs. Christina Cunningham, were recalled at the jury’s request. One said the accused had fixed ideas, and sometimes seemed morbid. The other said she noticed nothing unusual about his conversation, but his manner at times was unusual for a visitor. Medical evidence was then heard. Dr. T. G. Short said he was convinced that the accused was insane, and probably had been insane for a long time, lie would at times have a violent tendency to suicide or homicide. The accused said lie did not remember his act, and, of course, witness could not say if that was true, but lie did not think the accused was malingering. The witness, cross-examined by the Crown Prosecutor, said be knew several people in Auckland who were suffering from the same mental disease as the accused, but he was not proposing to certify any of them as insane. It might be necessary some day. To His Honor the witness said that tho accused, when lie committed the act, did not know what bo was doing. The Crown Prosecutor: Was his action in going to the bathroom and getting a razor to cut the woman’s throat not compatible with a knowledge that tho blows on the. head might not cause death? Tlio witness: Yes. Tile prosecutor commented on the fact that tho accused wrote a note after attacking the. woman, but there was no sign of blood on the writing pad, and that the weapon used —which had never been found—must have been either washed by the accused or secreted. “Isn’t tlwit compatible with a knowledge that he knew what he bad done?” The witness: Yes, after the act, but not at the time.