MURDER OF TURK.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 341, 6 February 1932, Page 18 (Supplement)

MURDER OF TURK.

DRAMATIC SCENES. AMERICAN SENTENCED. IRISH MYSTERY SOLVED. Dramatic scenes marked the closing stages of the trial at the Ulster Assizes at Armagh of Eddie Cullens, an American, who was sentenced to death for the murder of Achmefc Musa, a Turk. Cullens stoutly protested his innocence. Musa's nude body, with a bullet wound through the head, was found in a field near Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim, on September 4. A woman's bathing cap was on the head. Cullens and Musa were members of a syndicate of four formed to exploit Zaro Agha, a Turk, claiming to be 156 years of age, as the oldest man in. the world. It took the jury exactly half an hour to find Cullens guilty. Standing stiffly between two warders in the dock, he stared mutely at the foreman as if stupefied by the verdict.

His dark, flashing eyes closed, and he gripped the rails of the dock. Quickly recovering his composure, he declared in a voice quivering with emotion; “All 1 can say is that what I told on oath —that I was not guiltv—was the Gospel truth.” “I cannot hold out any hope to .you that the sentence will not be carried out, although that lies in the discretion of the Governor of Northern Ireland,” said Lord Chief Justice Moore, in passing sentence of death. He added that the verdict, in his opinion, was perfectly justified. A number of women in the gallery wept when they heard the sentence passed. Cullens turned sharply on his heels and disappeared below. Later, when the excited crowds round the courthouse had disappeared, lie was taken 'to Belfast prison in a patrol wagon and lodged in the condemned cell. Judge’s Summing-up. The Lord Chief Justice, in summing-up, said it was obvious that if the bathing cap found on the head of the murdered man had been in the possession of Cullens it was a damning fact against him. If the jury also believed the farmer named Hegan about seeing Cullens near the scene of the discovery of the body on the night of September 2, that also was damning. What was he doing on the lonely road at midnight? No explanation had been given consistent with his innocence except that he was not there. Mr. B. J. Fox. junior to Mr. William Lowry, K.C.. who led for the defence, made a brilliant three-hour fight for Cullens, which was a fine piece of critical analysis of the evidence. He pitted statement against statement given by Crown witnesses and declared that the case was one that had been built up backwards. The clues, he stated, were found later to fit the ease of the prosecution, which suggested that Cullens was a monster, appearing openly as Musa’s friend, yet had lurking in his mind the vile intention of murder. No one knew why, and the Crown did not say. Motive Mystery. “What was the motive?” asked counsel. “Was it jealousy, or greed, or anger? Rational people do nQt murder for the sake of murder. I suggest,” said Mr. Fox deliberately, “that Achmet Musa, being left alone in the motor car at the dog races, took a tramcar into the town, there got into bad company and may have taken out his pistol. His companions may have tried to rob hint, and he, overpowered, was shot with his own pistol.” The case for»the prosecution, which was conducted by Mr. A. B. Babington, K.C., the Ulster Attorney-General, was that Musa was taken for a ride in a car and shot, his body being deposited on the road at a lonely spot. Cullens took a garage at Wavertree, Liverpool, anc! after the murder a new pick and shovel were found inside the garage. Mr. Babington suggested that it was the original intention of Cullens to bury Musa in the garage, as he had inquired whether it had a concrete or earthen floor. Cullens, however, abandoned the idea, and on August 28, with a saloon ear crossed to Belfast with the intention of disposing of Musa in unfamiliar surroundings. Drive With Two Girls. While the men were out for a drive with two girls they had met in Belfast, one of the girls saw a blue and white bathing cap fall out of a pocket in the car. When Musa’s body was found, a woman’s blue and white bathing cap was on the head. In his evidence, Cullens, who said he was 28 and a native of New York, declared that a small pink bag used for keeping money in was what fell from the pocket of the car. and not a blue and white bath-r ing cap. He added that Musa’s character with women was /Very bad.” Cullens, who said he took the garage at Liverpool for someone else, denied asking whether the floor was concrete or earth. The pick and shovel were bought to protect their tent from the wet weather. They went to Ireland “until things had cooled down” after Musa had struck a man at the circus.