Brutal Murder.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 6240, 12 June 1890, Page 3

Brutal Murder.

At a recent meeting of the Queensland Executiveeit was decided that the sentence of death passed by Mr Justice Mein on Michael Barry for wife murder at Rockhampton shall bo carried out, the execution being fixed for the morning of Monday, 21st June. The crime for which Michael Barry is to die was committed on the morning of 28th February last, and was of a peculiarly brutal character. The doctor’s examination showing that tho whole surface of the woman’s body had been beaten to such an extent that the nervous system hud broken down and so death had resulted. On the night previous to the murder being committed Barry was drunk and had to bo taken by his wife and little child in a cab to their home on the Eange. After getting into the house he .sent his wife for beer and gave her a shilling to pay for it. On her coming back Barry asked for Ihe purse. The woman replied that she did not know whore it was, and he siruek her with his fist and kicked tho child. The mother and child then wont outside and stood near tho house till five o’clock next morning, when they entered the back room and nndreesed and wont to bed. The child, who was the principal witness at the trial, was awakened by her father again asking his wife for the purse. She replied that she had not got it. Barry then seems to have slowly killed the woman, striking her with different pieces of wood, and then with ah axe handle, until she expired. The murderer then went into the kitchen, smoked a pipe, and subsequently sent one of the children for a policeman, to whom he gave himself up. At tho trial, which took place before Mr Justice Mein, on April 13, tho Crown Prosecutor, Mr P. Real, said the only question which the jury had to consider was whether there was anything which would reduce the crime from murder to manslaughter. The jury at first could not agree, one man holding out against a verdict of murder, and they were locked up for the night. The next morning tho juror would not concur in the verdict arrived at by the other eleven jurymen, and the foreman stated that the juror in question wished to make a law for himself. His Honour again explained the law, and informed the jury that it was their plain and manifest duty to find the prisoner guilty of the offence with which he was charged. The jury again retired, and ten minutes afterwards returned into court with a verdict of “ Guilty,” but with a strong recommendation to mercy, on account of the previous good character which be had borne and the strong provocation which he had from his wife. The Judge then passed sentence of death.