MURDERt CHARGE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 90, Issue 57, 11 March 1946, Page 3

MURDER t CHARGE

SYDNEY JOURNALIST TAKES OWN NOTES AT INQUEST. Sydney, Feb. 27. This week in Sydney’s Long Bay ■ penitentiary Douglas Ronald Morris, i 26-year-old journalist, started on the' most dramatic job of his newspaper career. It was a self-ass’gnment, and his version of it would never be pub- , fished, but it would keep him engrossed for days. Before him was a thick reporter’s notebook crammed with shorthand' notes. For six days she had sat. in I custody, in front of the Press desk I taking verbatim the evidence of wit-1 nesses called at the inquest on Mrs.: Jeanette Wicks, found battered and • strangled to death with a rope, in her tobacco kiosk in the commercial centre of the city on January 2. | Morris was now transcribing his notes, reading again the testimony of witnesses who had helned the coroner to arrive at his finding that Mrs. Wicks had “died from strangulation felon’ously and maliciously caused by t Morris, by twisting a rope round her; neck.” Morris was committed for trial on a charge of murder and refused bail. He took the coroner’s announcement standing stiffly, without a change ini his c'tolid expression, took a brle r fare- j well of his mother and wife, donned I his Homburg hat and stepped smartlv from the court ; n the company c,f a detective, his notebook i clutched in his hands. TREMENDOUS INTEREST |

The case created tremendous in-' lerest, and the public gallery was’ packed every day ol the hearing. On the final day the crowd oegan to arrive at 8 a.m., two hours before the; court opened. The inquiry probed, deeply into the lives of several of the score of witnesses. The victim, Mrs. Jeanette Wicks, 45-year-old divorcee, had conducted an ( extensive illegal betting business be-' hind, the facade of her little tobacco j kiosk. Evidence revealed that she had | two particular men friends, and one. of them, Major Richard Gadd, mar-1 ried, of Katoomba, was warned of the consequences of committing perjury after he had admitted giving evidence. In his first testimony Gadd said he had not been to Mrs. Wicks’ flat in Macleay Street, King’s Cross, on January 2.’ After another witness had. given evidence of having seen a light in Mrs. Wicks’ flat between 8.30 p.m. and 9 p.m. that night Gadd was recalled and admitted that he had gone there. letting himsel r in with a key Mrs. Wicksc had given him some time before. Finding her not home he had taken two packets of midget cigars, for which he bad left 4s and a nqje. “All my love.” He had seen Mrs. I Wicks at the kiosk at 1.55 p.m. several hours before her body was found. For the rest of the afternoon he had been on duty at Victoria Barracks. FELLOW-REPORTER’S EVIDENCE Colin Davis, a fellow-reporter with Morris on the Sydney “Mirror,” said that he had spoken to Morris on January 26. “I said to him,” said Davis, “'I am sorry to hear about the trouble you are in, Doug.’ ” Morris' had replied, “The police have a good case against me, but it is purely circumstantial.’ He then told Davis that he had gone to the kiosk that night,] found Mrs. Wicks on the floor, and I thought she had taken a fit. Davis said that Morris added, “Why should • I want to kill this woman? I owed! her £lOO, but I am on almost £2O a i week at the ‘Mirror.’ I have my own ’ home and. car. My mother is well off. > and I know she would look after me.” i Morris will come up for trial at the Sydney Criminal Quarter Session^ 1 commencing March 11.