PUKEKAWA MURDER.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VII, Issue 2081, 15 October 1920, Page 3

PUKEKAWA MURDER.

PRELIMINARY TRIAL OF ACCUSED. Press Association. AUCKLAND,' October 14. The preliminary trial of Samuel John Thorn, charged with the murder of Sydney Seymour' Eyre, at Pukekawa, on August 24, began at Pukekohe to-dav, before Mr J. W. Poynton, S.M. Mr Hunt, for the prosecution, addressing the Court, said the case was a strong circumstantial one. It would he shown that the fatal shot was fired by one who had intimate knowledge of the house. Thorn was the only one outside the family having that knowsledge. At the time of the murder Thorn was working at Granville's farm, IS miles from Eyre's. A horse under Thorp's charge had peculiarly shaped shoes, and 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. The 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. The night of the murder was one of two nights when Thorn hadbeen left alone in his wha-re. Evidence would show 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, and 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. Tho motive suggested was revenge for being discharged from a good position, and being deprived of the opportunity for continuing the relations which were forced on Mrs Eyre. Millicent Eyre, widow of the deceased, stated that the property of COO acres owned by her late husband, was worth between £13,000 and £20,000. On the night of August 24 there was nobody at the house eseept members of the family, and everyone was in bed by about 9 o'clock. Her husband and Phillip were the last to go to bed, and she saw tltat the front door was closed. She was awakened after having been asleep 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. Sho heard quick,

heavy steps up the side of the house, apparently going towards the back gate. She called to her husband, and, gutting no answer, she struck a light and discovered that the top of his head had been blown away. Between five an I 10 minutes after the boys had left the house for help, she heard a horse cross the bridge below the'house, apparently going away from the house. Witness said that accused last visited the farm on August 24. He had often told her that he loved hor, and Had asfted her to go and live with him. She admitted that relations had been improper between accused and herself. They continued after her husband returned. She could not prevent them, because Thorn said he would "put me away to my husband; expose me; drag my name in the gutter; and get me divorced." She accused at the Tuakau police station after the murder. He asked her then what made her think that he had killed her husband. She replied: "Circumstances." JHe asked: "What circumstances," and she answered: "You knew the position of the bed and everything about the house." He replied: "True as I am here I never did it.'' Mrs Eyre was still in the box when the case was adjourned till next day.