COMMUTED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 228, 25 September 1940, Page 8

COMMUTED.

DEATH SENTENCE.

WAIKINO MURDER.

IMPRISONMENT FOR LIFE.

WELLINGTON, this day.

The Executive Council met to-dar fche Governor-General. Lord Galwav, pw*. *i<linjr. when the death sentence pasted on Douglas Herbert Cartman was considered. Cartman was convicted eight weeks ago of murder at Waikino. The Executive Council's decision was t*at the death sentence be commuted to imprisonment for life. It is understood that reports indicate that the prisoner is of lec« tlaa normal mentality, though he could not be regarded as insane. Cartman was arrested at Waihi on May 1 on a charge of murdering Mrs. Alice Elizabeth Hamilton. It wa-Tearlv on the morning of April 2 thai Mis. Hamilton was found dead in some scrub clone to the Waitawheta Road, one mile from Waikino, with her bead battered in. Four miles away, on the same road, was found the body of 16-vear-old Lloyd Mom n, who had accompanied her on a fatal walk, begun from the Waikino Hotel at 7.15 p.m. on Tuesdav April 2. J * The arrest followed investigations carried out over a wide area durjji" the whole month of April. As with° tie Piha case, the use which detectives made of facilities offered by pathologists in Auckland and Wellington was" of paramount importance. Cartman ii a single man. aged 22. He lived wh* his mother in Walrasley Street, Waihi and was employed as a trucker at tfat Martha mine. The preliminary hearing of the Border charge took place at Waihi and after a two-day hearing Cartman was committed for trial in the Supreme Court at Auckland. The trial £t£ Supreme Court began before Mr. Jurtii*. Fair on Julv 22.