THE AUCKLAND MURDER.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 1, Issue 160, 2 October 1880, Page 2

THE AUCKLAND MURDER.

Auckland, ‘Sept. 30. Joe, the murderer, was taken in a cab by Superintendent Thomson and SubInspector Pardy to Mr. Sankey’s house, in order to be identified by the boy Gibson Wilcott, who was struck on the skull with the axe. The’boy identified him readily. Young Wilcott sleeps most of his time and feels little pain, but Drs. Philson and Hooper have.little hopes of his survival. Mr. Sankey, in reply to the Islander’s statement that the boys Sandy and Gibson has teased and chaffed him ' prior to his making the attack, authoritatively denies the' ’ assertion as also do the boys. The strange* European who, he stated, told him that the Europeans would hang him to a beam is named Michael Colom, anddie-does. not know a word of Fiji./ Mr. Wilcott ‘states that Joe has been in his service since March, 1871, and partially nursed the boy whose life ho attempted. He denies ever having chastised or scolded the Native. Such was- his confidence in Joe that in 1872, when the mountain tribes massacred Burns and Macintosh, at Bau, he selected him out of thirty natives in his employ to keep watch in turn with himself and eldest boy against the natives’ night surprises. Ho had twice seen : Joe peculiar'and eccentric, once after the measles, but as some ether, islanders were the same’way he thought nothing of it. The second time he could not account for it, and Joe seemed mentally deranged for two or three days, when he got the native boys to watch him to see that he did nothing to himself or others. ' Mr. Willcott says he cannot account for his conduct, saye that he had a recurrence of his previous fits of mental derangement and temporarily lost his reason.' , . --. Oct. 1. The trial of Jde, the Fijian, for the murder of Henry Louis Rees, lasted all day at the Police Court, and was adjourned owing to the disorderly crowd at the Court. The Constables cleared the Court, and the approaches thereto.