CARRICK MURDER CASE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 130, 19 February 1918, Page 6

CARRICK MURDER CASE

TRIAL OF THE CHILD'S MOTHER

CROWN PROSECUTOR'S

ADDRESS

By Telegraph.—Press Association. Christchurch, February 18. _The trial of Winifred Carrick, aged 27, on a charge of having murdered her son, Donald Lewis Carrick, aged three, years, at Addingto'n, on or about December. 8, 1917, was commenced in the Supreme Court to-day, before Mr: Justice Chapman.' Mr. S. G. Raymond, K.C., prosecuted for the Crown, and Mr. 0. T. J. Alpers appeared for the accused. The facts of the case, as outlined by the Crown, may be briefly recapitulated as follows:—In the early morning of December 8 last Richard Thomas Burns, a labourer, residing at 31 Clifton Street, Adlington, whose resi' dence was a licensed home for infants, conducted by his wife, Ada Louisa Bums, found, the body of v the child Donald Lewis Carrick 'on its back among some; potato pants. The head was battered in, and '.moseguently a blood-stained sp inner and a tpade were found near where the body lay. The child was an inmate of the home, and 10s. a week-- was beHig paid for its maintenance. The movements\of the mother, of the child (the accused), who had served a term of imprisonment for abandoning it when an infant, by leaving it in a tree by the riverside, aroused suspicion, and she was arrested, and committed for trial at magisterial proceedings beard on December 21. The child was born on January lh. 1915, and was a foundling. There were thirteen people in the Burns home at the time of the murder, namely, Mr. and Mrs. Bums and their five children, a boarder, and five other children who had been boarded out. The last seen of the child was at 9 o'clock on the night of December 7. Mr. and Mrs. Burns had been out and letiirnod towards midnight. Nobody had left the house; during the night. The accused had served a sentence in Addiiigton Gaol for abandoning the child, and was released on Januarv 30, 1917. < Subsequently- the accused went to Welling--ton, where her parents lived. During the following September focused had told Mrs. Green that she wanted to make arrangements for the adoption of the child. She had stated that the police were worrying her in regard to maintenance, but that she would not pay it, preferring to re-enter Addiiigton Prison. Mr. Raymond referred to the proceedings against the accused in the Magistrate's Court for maintenance, and traced her movements as far as they could be ascertained to the time of and subsequent to the tragedy. On the night of tho murder the accused had not slept in her bed, and had not given a satisfactory account of her movements on that night. She had also made a statement during the day of December 7 that she was going to Wellington, but had 7iot done so. When Detective Gibson asked accused where she spent the night >of December 7, she had replied, "That is my business." A striped dress would play a part in the identification. After her arrest it was found that certain garments were very damp and that a pair of stockings were in a muddy condition and contained grass seeds which were identical with seeds taken from Burns's residence. The Crown contended that accused had removed her boots and carried out the crime in her stockinged feet. The reason put forth for the commission of the crime was financial embarrassment on the part of the accused.

Dr. Chainptaloup, of Dunedin, stated that a spade and a spanner sent to him for bacteriological examination bad given a reaction of human blood. Dr. Scott described the child's injuries, and said that from the depression in the soil under the boy's head it must have been dealt a fairly heavy blow. V

Annie 33/ Cox, manager of the Receiving Home, deposed to receiving thechild as a foundling and accused's visit to the home, wliile Christina B. Uren, nn attendanfat the home, gave evidence as to having taken the child to Burns's and to accused loitering about the home and near the tram on the occasion. Other evidence was given as to accused, after much reluctance, consenting to a maintenance order, and the previous finding 0/ the child in a hollow willow tree at Dallington in February, 1915. Mrs. Burns and members of her family deposed to it being usual to leave the back door unlocked and the window of the bojrs bedroom up. The case was adjourned till tomorrow.