MURDER CHARGE

Taranaki Daily News, 24 September 1928, Page 11

MURDER CHARGE

AFTER MYSTERIOUS DEATH. Police have discovered many strange circumstances connected with the death of Hilda Hancock, a divorced woman, who was found dead in a laundry off a house in Underwood Street, Paddington, on Saturday morning last. Aubrey Chapman (33), a carpenter, who was also discovered unconscious alongside Mrs. Hancock, with largo wounds in his throat, has been charged with murder. He told the police at first that he was given a poisoned chocolate by the dead woman, after which he remembered nothing. He said that he suspected that the woman had cut his throat while he was under the influence of the drugged chocolate and had then commi'... 1 1 suicide herself. It has been discovered that Mrs. Hancock was to have been married on Saturday afternoon last, to a young man who became acquainted with her at a hotel in the city where she was a barmaid. Chapman in his first statement to the police said that Mrs. Hancock knocked at his back door in Underwood Street after midnight on Friday last. He went to the door and she called out to him to come outside, that she wanted to talk to him. He said that he had known her for a considerable period, and since he had been living apart from his wife Mrs. Hancock had visited his home on several occasions, where she had stopped ths night.

He was perturbed, however, because on Friday night last, he said, she came to the back door and knocked furtively. Usually she came to the front door. He went out to her, and she told' him she had something to tell him. So he procured a -mattress from his room and brought it out to a laundry which is set away from the house. There, said Chapman, he and Mrs. Hancock talked for a while about her marriage, which was to take place that afternoon. She offered him a chocolate, and he ate it. After he had done so, however, he said that he became dazed and did not remember anything more until he woke up in hospital. The police state that they found Mrs. Hancock dead, with a razor in her hand. Chapman was beside her, unconscious, with large gashes in his throat. They were at a loss to discover any reason for the woman having committed suicide, as she was to have been married that afternoon. Her prospective husband waited at the church, the guests had arrived, and it was not until the police came and informed the crowd that the woman had been found dead at Paddington that tho bridegroom became aware that the wedding was off. Investigations were continued throughout the week-end, and finally on Monday morning the police decided to question Chapman, who had by this time reiterated his story of the doped chocolate. Neighbours and relatives of Chapman told a story of a sinister man who had been seen lurking in the laneway at the rear of the house late on Friday night. He wore a cap pulled down over his face, they said, and was dressed in a long overcoat. “That man knows all about this terrible affair,” said Chapman’s father to the police. The young man who was to have married Mrs. Hancock told the police that as far as he knew there was never any affair between Chapman and the woman. He said that as far as he knew Mrs. Hancock’s friend was a very closp friend of Chapman, but he had never heard of Mrs. Hancock ever visiting Chapman at night. Chapman’s relatives who stayed in the same house, however, told the police that the woman often came there.

That there is some complicated set of circumstances behind the whole affair is certain. Chapman’s answers to police questions were evidently unsatisfactory, and he was charged, while still in bed, with having mnrdered her. The contents of the dead woman’s stomach have been sent to the Government analyst. Chapman was removed to the Long Bay Penitentiary Jiospital, where be is under police guard. Tho affair created a sensation in the district, where Chapman had lived for many years.