TRIAL OF MOUAT.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 May 1925, Page 6

TRIAL OF MOUAT.

WIFE MURDER ALLEGED. BONES IN RUBBISH HEAP,. 80MR DEFINITELY HUMAN. I THE EFFECTS OF FIRE. By Telegraph- Prese Association. Christchurch, Last Night. Th« trial of Frederick Peter Moua* on a charge of having murdered his wife, Ellen Louise Mouat, at Sft. Martin *b on or alboirt February 20 last, was continued in the Supreme Court to-day before Mr. Justice Adams. Therfc was again a large crowd in court. Lucy Prosser, a married neighbour, gave evidence on the lines of the lower Court an to a party at her house on February 10 and a« to seeing washing on the line at later dates and smoke timing from the dining-room fire, and • Mouat’s statement that he was going to see if his wife was in Oamaru or Dunedin. Cross-examined, Mrs. Prosser said she did not smell anything like burning flesh from the fire on the .section. Witness had seen the trunks of clothes which Mrs. Mouat had bought in London. She had not taken those into consideration when accounting for Mrs. Mouat’e clothes. On the Saturday she noticed a cut on Mouat’s arm near the wrist. Mrs. Mouat had been de* pressed at times. Detective Thomson gave evidence as to finding the bones. Cross-examined he said all the bones, except those in the grate, were found in the dug part of the section or ig a large heap of refuse. W. P. Gowland, professor of anatomy at Otago University, gave evidence on the lines given in the lower court as to th<3 result of his examination of the bones found in the rubbish heap in Mouat’s garden. Many of these bones he classed as being definitely human. In the course of cross-examination Professor Gowland said he had not had personal experience of a human that had been burnt, but there were cases of the destruction of the human body by fire in an American work by Peterson and Haynes. It showed that the usa of fire to destroy a human body in order to remove evidence of.crime was of somewhat common occurrence in criminal cases. In one instance cited a man weighing 16011)8. was burned experimentally. No piece of bone over two inches long was left and all ths pieces that could be identified as bone# could go into a large cigar box. Mr. Thomas (for the defence): In chh mation it is possible to burn a body in three or four hours? Professor Gowland: Yes, the shortest time in which a body has been burnt is one hour. Counsel: Are you able to give the jury any instances of the burning of a body in a grate without drafts 13in. by Ilin, by 7in.? Witness:- No, because the dimensions are not given in the quoted cases. The court then adjourned till 10 a. me to-morrow.