PATEA SENSATION

Wairarapa Daily Times, 17 December 1932, Page 5

PATEA SENSATION

ATTEMPTED MURDER CHARGE. lIAWERA, Friday. On a charge of having attempted the murder of William James Canadus, who was shot from an ambush outside hia residence in Patea on the night of 20th October, Alexander Myles, aged 26, single, was committed for trial at the Wanganui Supreme Court. When lie appeared before the justices in the Patea Court to-day bail was refused. The police produced statements m which Myles said he had borrowed a shotgun on 17th October to go rabbit shooting. On the night of 19th October ho went into the grounds at the rear of the house where the Canadus’s had rooms, propping the gate open, lie supposed, lest anyone should come out. He did not- knock. After a time ho went away. Next evening he went to- the house carrying a shotgun, both barrels of which were loaded. He at first placed tlvo gun on the ground near the gate. After the third knock on the door he picked the, gun up, cocking the trigger as he did so, and hid in tho bushes. Canadus, who was walking round the house, stopped near Myles’s hiding place. Myles thought that Canadus was looking at him. Myles had the gun under his arm, the barrel pointing toward Canadus. Without taking aim lie pulled the trigger and 1 the gun went off. When Canadus fell Myles ran through the gate he previously had left propped open. The court suppressed portions of Myles’s statement to the police concerning his association with Mrs Carradus. —‘(P.A.)