Murderer Confesses.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 25, 21 May 1914, Page 5

Murderer Confesses.

THE CERALDINE TRAGEDY A CAMP-MATE'S QUARREL, [Peb Press Association.] Timaru, May 20Harry Cripps. single, 27 years of age, charged at the Magistrate's Court at Geraldine to-day with the wilful murder on April 28 of Adam Stevenson, aged GO. a fellow- workr lon an out-farm, where they were hiving together in a wheeled hut, was committed for trial. The police had a prima facie case that he accused struck the deceased five blows on the head with a gorse knife just outside the galley, drew a. sack over the old man's head, placed the body in a dray, carted it at night for a mile and a-haif, and placed it in some gorse in the Orari riverbed, where it was found on April 30. A neighbor visited the camp after dark, and saw the horse and dray close to the galley and something lying on the ground behind the dray, but he thought it was fire-wood. A light was coming from the galley (not towards the dray) and Cripps shut the galley door. The police case included evidence that the two men did not get on well together, the elder man complaining that Cripps was inefficient, and Cripps of Adam growling at him. The case was completed by the confession of Cripps to Detective Fahey on the evening of his arrest as follows:—"I am sorry I didn't tell you on Tuesday. T was kneeling down, chopping sticks, when Adam hit me with a crowbar over the shoulder. I hit him with a stick on the head. I washed his face. I was going to take him down to you fellows, but I got frifrbtfned and carted him to the riverbed. Constable O'Grady, who found ib.& body, said the face was clean when found. A medical witness said the accused had a slight bruise on his shuoldor on the evening of the 30th, but it was too slight to have been caused by a crowbar.