THE EASTBOURNE MURDER.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19032, 7 June 1924, Page 5

THE EASTBOURNE MURDER.

MAHON ON TRIAL. LONDON, June 5. The chief interest in the Crumbles trial centred in Mahon ’s signed statement. Chief Dectective-Inspector Savage described the seizure of a handbag at Waterloo station, after which he took Mahon to Scotland Yard. The accused was silent for a quarter of an hour, then said: “I wonder if you can realise how terrible it is for one’s body to be active and one’s mind to fail to act.”

In cross-examinatiqn, Inspector Savage admitted that Mahon was in the room for six hours and declined food. He finally collapsed, and had to be revived with whisky. Later Mahon made a second statement, and wrote the two last paragraphs himself and revised the remainder.

Inspector Savage added that Mahon first explained the condition of the bag was due to carrying home meat for degs, but witness said, “That won’t do; the stains are human blood.”

Mahon retorted: “You seem to know all about it.”

The police to-day submitted a new ! statement wherein Mahon is alleged to have said: “I burned the head in an ordinary fire. It was finished in three hours. Next day I broke up the skull and put the pieces in the dustbin in the room where the quarrel happened. It struck me as haunted. I should have gone stark, raving made if Miss Duncan had not been with me.”