THE BABY FARMERS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 8227, 7 June 1895, Page 3

THE BABY FARMERS.

(By Telegraph.) IN\ EROARGILL, June 6. At the Magisterial enquiry into the alleged murder of the infant Dorothy Editli Carter by Minnie and Charles Dean, there was little new evidence today. It came out that the infant was not the child of a married woman in Christchurch, but of a young girl, and that Mrs Dean did not get any premium with the child; £lO was to be paid on the Ist June. The girl Cameron who had been with Mrs Dean 14 years, and whose name had been used in the transfer of the infant, unhesitatingly identified the writing of the letters as that of Mrs Dean, and was equally emphatic in asserting that the signature, “M. Gray,” in the chemist’s poison book was also her writing. Witness was not about the Deans’ house at the time when this correspondence was going on and knew nothing about it. Esther Wallace, a girl of 16, who resided with the Deans, said that the woman was kind to children ; that she took off her cloak and wrapped it round the infant Carter while crossing the paddocks to the house on the night she brought her from the Bluff. She also said that she heard Dean ask his wife if the lady who was to adopt Dorothy had any children of her own, this leading to show that Charles Dean was under the impression that the child was going to someone else when taken away from- the Larches. The hearing of the case was adjourned. June 7.

When the charge of murder of Dorothy Edith Carter against the Deans was resumed this morning, the Crown Prosecutor stated that he proposed entering on a new line of evidence, with the object of showing that on the 3rd of May Mrs Dean had another infant entrusted to her, which she had also murdered. In tendering this evidence he relied on a judgement of the Privy Council in the Makin infanticide case, wherein it was held that at the hearing of the indictment for the murder of one infant, evidence could be adduced of the finding of other bodies in accused’s garden. His object was to show that the death of Dorothy Edith was not the result of accident but design. Mr Hanlon, for accused, objected, intimating that he would carry her objection to the Supreme Court, but the magistrate, Mr Poynton, admitted the evidence.