WOMAN ON TRIAL

Wanganui Chronicle, 4 May 1948, Page 5

WOMAN ON TRIAL

DEATH OF FARMER’S WIFE

EVIDENCE AS TO “BITTER" CAKE AND JUBES. (P.A.) Dunedin, May 3. The evidence of Mrs. Annie Ellen Hamilton, of Totara, near Oamaru, who described statements which the accused had alleged were made to her concerning happenings at Hector Morrison's farm on the afternoon that his wife, Joyce Maysie Morrison, died, was heard in the Supreme Court today, when the trial of Phyllis Freeman was continued. She is charged with the murder of Mrs. Morrison on October 3, 1942. FIFTH DAY OF AtTRIAL. Today was the fifth day of the new trial, and Mrs. Hamilton was the 34th witness called by the Crown. She did not give evidence at the first trial in February. Miss Ina May Pearce, who received a cake with a bitter taste while at her home in Southland, and later fell ill when she was staying at the farm of Hector Morrison, her cousin, spent 22 hours in the witness box. Twelve more Crown witnesses have yet to give evidence., Ina May Pearce, single, aged 31, said she had known the accused since August, 1945, when she and her sister had gone to stay at the Morrison’s farm for a few days. “I got on quite well with the accused, who was friendly towards me,” Pearce told the court. The next time she saw the accused was in May, 1947, in Oamaru. At some time between those dates, while witness was staying at her home at Otahu, in Southland, she received a piece of cake from an unknown person. An Oamaru postmaik was on the parcel. Witness described her experience with the acrased in Morrison’s farmhouse while they were alone together on the morning of May 23, 1947.

BAG OF SWEETS. "The accused offered me a bag <— sweets,” witness said. “I took one and ate it. It tasted bitter. I do not remember seeing the accused take a sweet from the bag.” Witness said the accused gave her a cup of tea, and immediately witness experienced a "strange feeling.” Her legs began to twitch, and her muscles tightened. Pearce said she made her way from the kitchen to a bedroom, where the accused gave her an A P.O. tablet in powdered form. The tablet had a bitter taste, similar to the sweet which she had eaten. After Morrison had returned to the house and gone to ring for a doctor witness vomited and immediately felt better.

“When the doctor! he examined me,” Miss Pearce said. "I did not tell him about What I had eater, because I did not think there was any importance attached to it. I cannot remember having any more spasms after the vomiting." Witness said she was in hospital from May 23 until June 2. Accused and Hector Morrison visited her home three times. On one visit the accused confessed that she had sent a broadcast message recalling witness and her relatives from the North Island and apologised.

A letter which the accused later wrote to Pearce was read to the jury. In the letter the accused said that she was “a nervous wreck, shaking all over and fighting nerves day and night.” She enclosed £1 for expenses.

Mr. Adams: Do you know of any reason why the accused should want to injure or kill you?—No. Was there any suggestion between Morrison and yourself of courtship, or love? —None whatever.

Do you know of any reason why the accused sshould be jealous of you No. Elinor Rozelle Hill, single, aged 26, a cousin of Hector Morrison, said that in October, 1946, she was at her home at Wright's Bush, Southland, when she received some light fruit-cake by post. She did not know from whom it came.

“After I had eaten the cake I did not feel very well,” witness said. “I felt a stiffness in my arms and legs, and my stomach felt terribly sick.”

Cross-examined by the defence, witness said that at the time she received the cake she had never met the accused. The Court adjourned.