MURDER CHARGE.

Wairarapa Age, 17 June 1936, Page 5

MURDER CHARGE.

SECOND TRIAL OF ERIC

MAREO. COUNSEL ADDRESS THE JURY. SUBMISSIONS FOR DEFENCE. AUCKLAND, June 16. The retrial of Eric Mareo on a charge of murdering his wife was continued to-day, Counsel for the defence, Mr. H. F. O’Leary, K.C., addressing the Jury, asked them to consider what would be the end of the trial for a man in the dock charged with murder, the penalty of which they knew. Would he be free to return to his children and his friends pr would he return to the cell where he had been incarcerated? Veronal was not a weapon. Counsel went on to state that the records showed that deaths from veronal in the case of adults rose in the main from misadventure and suicide. What might kill one person might have little or no effect on another. A person setting out to murder by veronal could have no idea as to haw ffltrch to give. The Crown selected the possibility that Mareo had given veronal to Mrs Mareo. He did it, the Crown -said, at a time when Mr. and Mrs Mareo were said to be happy and when .Freda Stark waa present. The defence contended that the most likely alternative was that Mrs Mareo, by accident or design, took the veronal herself. It was most likely and most consistent that she had had some innocently on Friday night, ‘that on Saturday she got up after the manner of persons under the influence of veronal or even without

getting up and took a store of veronal and that was what killed her. RELATIONS WITH MISS BBOWNLEE Mr/O’Leary dealt next with the relations between Mareo and Eleanor Brownlee. He spoke of a quarrel which took place after a Dixieland party, when Miss Brownlee brought Mareo home drunk. That in itself was an Indication that there was nothing improper between them. A man did not 1 bring home his mistress into the bosom of his family. When he was allegedly murdering this woman Mareo was drafting a letter to Messrs J. C. Williamson Limited asking them to take over ‘“Duchess of Dantzig,” the play in which his wife played the leading part. Thelma Mareo was essential to Mareo’s future projects and yet the jury was asked to believe that he had murdered her. It might be suggested that Miss Brownlee was to take Mrs Mareo’s place but she was not .an actress. “To procure veronal, Mareo went to chemists who knew him,” said Mr. OLeary. “He told detectives that | lie was taking veronal and told others lie was taking it. Are those the actions of a guilty man! Would he not have got rid of the stuff had he been guilty! AH of Mareo’s actions in regard to veronal were frank and were certainly not those of a guilty man. As soon as his wife died he candidly admitted possession of veronal. He never hesitated. He thought that his wife’s condition was due to the medicine he had given her and he was not candiid about the medicine because he thought he had committed an offence. I ask you to contrast his actions over the corrective medicine and his action regarding the veronal. On the one hand he, was Candid, truthful and straightforward •nd on the other he was not. CROWN PROSECUTOR’S ADDRESS. Mr. V. R. Meredith, Crown Prosecutor, in addressing the jury, attacked the defence evidence. “I am going to put it to you,” said Mr. Meredith, “that that evidence has no bearing or practically none on this case. The whole case now depends on a careful consideration of the incidents from the Friday night to the Monday afternoon, when Thelma Mareo died. It was surprising that it was necessary to bring people from Australia to prove Mrs Mateo’s drinking habits. There should have been plenty of people in New Zealand and in Auckland who knew her intimately. People who knew her in Australia and performed with her there said they knew nothing of these accusations. Dr. Giesen, who was called for the defence, put up a most amazing proposition. He was a man who admittedly studied the case from the out sei and advised the defence. He advised the defence that everyone was wrong but he did not come to the last trial and give evidence and it was only now that he got into the firing line. Dr. Giesen’s theory was a contradiction of several reputable men who gave their evidence with certainty and who were supported by text books. Surely out of the thousands of medical men in New Zealand there must have been some who would have come forward in the interests of justice to support Dr. Giesen. Mr. Meredith had not finished when the Court adjourned.—(P.A.)