THE PAPAKAIO MURDER CASE.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume VII, Issue 683, 30 January 1883, Page 2

THE PAPAKAIO MURDER CASE.

■ ; -» [by telegraph."! Dunedin, January 26. Judge Williams, in his charge to the jury, en id, " Thin caae, like cuobt cases of the kind, depends,, upon circuraetmcial evidence, and it may bo well that I should , preface my remarks by explaining shortly what circumstaneial evidence really is, and what amount of citcuinstancial evidence will justify » jury in arriving at the con- •• elusion that the piisoiißr is guilty of the crime he stands accused of. Now, circurastancial evidence consists of a series of circumstances pointing in one direction, numely, the guilt of the Accused person. Not only must they be consistent with his guilt, but albo inconsistent with any other rational conclusion. That is a consideration most important for jurors in cases of eircumetaneial evidence to bear in mind. I will not compare circumstantial evidence to a chain and my that whero one of the circuinst ■rices attempted to be proved fails to be proved, that therefore there is a missing link, and that the whole fabric must fell to pieces. There may bee number of circumstances adduced in evidence without proof of a certain one of them, but it does not necessarily follow from that that the case fails to be proved, if the remaining circumstances proved point to the prisoner's guilt." The jury has to be satisfied first, that Mrs Beattie was murdered, and second, that the prisoner was the murderer. As to the suggestion of the prisoner's counsel that the appearances of the body when found were consistent with the theory of death by suicide or by accident, her previous mental condition was not inconsistent with that vie«v. Hie own view was that appearances were not consistent. with suicide being the direct cause of death. There was no evidence that deceased attempted to hang herself, and that was the merest possible guesswork. What appeared to be the weak part of the Crown case was that it might be consistent with evidence that the woman was dead before the prisoner went to her hat on June 10th. The conclusion one would draw from rending Dγ DeLautour'a evidence would be that, from his point of view, the woman attempted suicide herself and was murdered afterwards. If the wounds on her neck were self-inflicted and those on her head were done by somebody else, it could not be reasonably expected that blood would be found on the clothes worn by the person who inflicted them. Beattie was acquitted after a two hoars' retirement.