ALLEGED BURGLARY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18387, 3 May 1934, Page 2

ALLEGED BURGLARY

TWO iMEN FOR TRIAL FINGER PRINTS FOUND (Per Press Aasocintion.) WELLINGTON, this day. Pleas of not guilty were entered by William Murphy, 50, a laborer, and Thomas Joseph O’fthea, 34, a fireman, when they were charged in the Magistrate's Court with breaking ahd entering on April 16 the shop of Messrs. R. Hannah and Company, and stealing shook valued at £9. The accused were committed to the Supreme Court for trial.

Evidence was given by the manageress of the shop, who said that when she returned on April 16 she found a glass panel of a door broken, and five pairs of ladies’ shoes missing. She noticed blood on a ledge in the shop, on the floor, and on a footstool. Gerald Francis Gardner, a salesman, said lie was in Dixon street at 11.6 p.m. on April 16, and just before he got to Hannah’s shop ho heard a tinkling of glass. As he passed the shop he saw a man standing in the doorway, and another stepping through a broken panel of a door. Witness informed a constable of what he had seen, and pointed out the two men, who were still in the vicinity. Constable Wilson said he .saw the two men walking down Dixon street, each with a bundle under his arm. Both ran round the side of a house. Witness followed them, and saw Murphy in a hiding attitude along the path. Witness said: ‘‘Come on, I want you,” wliereupon Murphy stepped back two or three paces, and, putting a hand to his hip, said: “I have got a gun on you.” Witness punched, Murphy twice, and used his baton on him, when he started to call for his mate.

Constable Satherley said that when he arrived at the house in Dixon street he saw a man standing against the wall. He called out to the man, who ran into the house. Witness followed, and in a room upstairs found the accused, O’Shea, in bed. __ There was fresh blood on the back of O’Shea’s hand.

Constable Wills, an assistant in the criminal registration branch of the Police Department, said he was satisfied that fingerprints found on two pieces of glass taken from the broken door panel were those of the accused.