THE TE AWAITE TRAGEDY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 32, 7 February 1905, Page 3

THE TE AWAITE TRAGEDY.

ELLIS BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT. " CROWN PROSECUTORS STATEMENT. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON. Monday. The trial of James William Ellis, alias John AleKenzie. charged with the murder of Leonard Reeve Collinson at Te Awaite. on February 2t>. 1904. was beI gun before Justice Dernistca to-day. Mr | -Myers (Crown Prosecutor) appeared for j the Crown, and Mr T. Wilford defended. I THE OPENING ADDRESS. j-he Crown Prosecutor detailed the circumstances connected with the murder. and said that the stag-shooting season had not eommeneed on February 26. arid no one had any license from the manager of the Te Awaite Station to go on the station and shoot. No one but" the scrub-cutters or people about the station had any right or any lawful business to he on the station, and certainly no one had any right to be shooting on the station, lie mentioned this in view of some visionary theory that might be raised that .-omeone was shooting about the station. There was no game to be found within a quarter of a mile of the scene of the murder, and even if there were poachers about, it was clear that in this there was nothing to shoot at unless the game was twolegged. Tbe circumstances were such that the jury must come to the conclusion that Collinson was shot by a man with intent to deliberate and wilful murder. EVIDENCE ALL CmCUMSTANTIAL. The Crown case would depend on what was generally called erremnstantial evidence. Nine out of ten eases before the Courts, and 99 out of every 100 murder cases, were and must be decided on such evidence alone. They sometimes beard a man say that he could not convict anyone of murder unless someone could come and say. "I saw him do it." He assured the jury that was a very wrong attitude. Murders were not committed in the present of a number of people; a murderer did not call people to come and sep him do it. If he did, there was a good deal in support of the plea of insanity. A murderer generally went about his work secretly, quietly and craftily, taking good cure that he should not be seen. Some judges preferred circumstantial evidence, and a jury never refused to convict merely because the evidence was to depose to two and two— it was for the jury themselves to make four out of this instead of the witness writing that figure on the blackboard. He instanced the Bosher ease. MOTIVE. Coming to the question of motive Collinson had. or accused thought he bail, got accused dismissed from the Te Awaite Station. In addition. Collinson had said unpleasant things about some previous episode in connection with the prisoner, and what Collinson had said was repeated to prisoner. Mr Myers explained to the jury that the fact that the' accused might have had an un- | pleasant episode in his life was not ! anything against him at all. but if accused had such an episode, and may be was trying to live it down, it -would be very annoying to him. to say the of it. if he found another referring to the episode, it might he to do him harm. It would be shown that it angered accused, and that he uttered serious threats against Collinson. which would form an important feature of the case. THE CASE FOR TRIAL. Counsel proceeded to put a supposititious case. Let them imagine the following matters concerning two men A and B: If they found A uttering serious threats against B. saying he would "do fori' B and so on. saying B wanted ''a bullet through his skuli:" if they found a motive for this in the effect on A3 mind of the actions which he believed B had done to injure him; if. after uttering threats. A's acts were consistent with an intention to carry them out; if shortly after B was suddenly shot through the heart; if prior to this A had been seen hovering round the locality of B's work, but keeping carefully out of view in a lonely desola-te track: if A was seen a few hours before the murder within a few hundred yards of the scene; if they found that no one else was seen in the locality; if immediately after the murder A cleared out and lived the life of an outlaw for nine months or more, stealing his means of subsistence, except possibly meat, which he shot: if they found that A was armed when arrested with a loaded rifle and with a revolver loaded in ail its six i chambers, the revolver slung just inside ! his coat with the holster undone (the revolver being of no use to anyone in the i bush unless for purposes, of self-defence 1 : if they found that A obtained a rifie more or less surreptitiously very shortly before the murder: if they found thai the rifle was capable of inflicting the injury tha-fc caused death: if they found I cartridges on A tl At fitted the rifle, and that were similar to the cartridges with which the wound must have been in- i flicted, to what conclusion, as reasonable men. eotdd they came? What ease could be stronger? This supposititious case I was the one they had to try.

THE LOCALITY VISITED.

After reviewing the case the Grown Proset-nior proceeded to call evidettee. The first witness was Reginald P. Greville, who produced a k>eality plan which he had prepared from data supplied. His evidence in detail was interrupted by a discussion on the question of the expediency of the jury viewing the locality. His Honor, in putting the matter to tbe jury, said it was entirety a question for themselves. All arrangements had been made, and if they thought it necessary to view the scene of the murder every facility would he given them for doing so, and every arrangement made for their convemence.

The jury, after consultation, announced thart they preferred to visit the locality. They left by this afternoon's Warrarapa train, accompanied by the Registrar of the Supreme Court, two constables and Mr Greville, surveyorMessrs Wilford and Myers, and Detective Eroberg -were also of the party. The trial has in the meantime been adjourned until 2 pjn. on Wednesday.