PUKEKAWA MURDER

Southland Times, Issue 18954, 15 October 1920, Page 5

PUKEKAWA MURDER

THORN BEFORE THE COURT. A SORDID STORY. (Per United Press Association.) AUCKLAND, October 14. The preliminary trial of Samuel John Thorn, charged with the murder of Sydney Seymour Eyre, of Pukekawa, on August 24, began at Pukekohe to-day, before Mr J. W. Poynton, S.M., Mr R. P. Hunter, for the prosecution, addressing the Court, said that the case was a strong circumstantial one. It would be shown that the fatal shot was fired by one who had intimate knowledge of the house. Thorn was the only one outside the family who had that knowledge. At the time of the murder Thorn was working at Granville's farm, 18 miles from Eyre's. A horse under Thorn's charge had peculiarly shaped shoes and the tracks discovered showed that it had been ridden between the two properties on August 24. Eyre's house contained two guns, neither of which had been fired. Recently a gun in Thorn's whare had been discharged. It took a cartridge of the same calibre as that used to kill Eyre. Thorn was the only possessor of cartridges of that particular brand within a radius of 20 miles. Mr Hunter said that the night of the murder was one of two nights when Thorn had been left alone in his whare. The' evidence showed that while Eyre was away and after his return Thorn had forced immoral relations on Mrs Eyre. Thorn had threatened Eyre's life before witnesses. He had said to Mrs Eyre: "Don't you wish he was dead." Eyre's sons had heard Thorn sneaking into their mother's room at night. The motive suggested was revenge for being discharged from a good position and being deprived of the opportunity for continuing immoral relations which were enforced on Mrs Eyre. Millicent Eyre, widow of the deceased, stated that the property of 600 acres owned by her late husband was worth between £15,000 and £20,000. On the night of August 24 there was nobody at the house except the members of the family, and everyone was in bed about 9 p.m. Her husband and her son Phillip were the last to go to bed, and she saw that the front door was closed. She was awakened after having been asleep for some time by accused's dog barking under the boys' room. This dog, Bob, had been taken away by Thorn when he left, but had come back by itself. The dog was barking furiously, and she called to it to lie down, which it did after a time, and she again went off to sleep, to be awakened later by the shot of a gun. Sbe heard quick heavy steps up the side of the house apparently going towards the back gate. She called to her husband, and getting no answer, she struck a light and discovered that the top of his hed had been blown away. Between five and ten minutes after the boys had left the bouse for help she heard a horse cross the bridge below the house, apparently going away from the bouse. In further evidence Mrs Eyre said the accused last visited the farm on August 24. He liad often told her that he loved her, and had asked her to go and live with him. She admitted that the relations had been improper between accused and herself. They continued after h«r husband returned. She cooki not prevent him because he said he would "put me away to my husband, expos© me, drag my name in the gutter, and get me di-wsccd." She saw accused at the Tuakati poHc* station after the murder. He asked her then what made her think he killed her husband, and she replied, "Circumstances." He asked "What circumstances?" ! and she answered, "You knew the position ■of the bed and everything about the house." He replied, "As true as I am here I never did it."

The witness was still in the bos when the case was adjourned.