THE LYTTELTON MURDER.

Evening Star, Issue 3785, 12 April 1875, Page 3

THE LYTTELTON MURDER.

[Bx Tbusgeaph.] , Chbiskihuboh, April 10. The murder case was completed to-day. The following is a digest of the case ;-On the day in question the murdered girl, who resided in Dampier Bay with her parents, came into Lyttelton to get tickets at the Colonists’ Hall for the school picnic. Shortly after five in the evening the prisoner was seen in company with the girl by two persons, standing at the Albion Hotel. He then spoke to a person there, leaving the girl to go on by herself. He was afterwards seen to overtake the girl, and proceed with her towards Oxford street. The prisoner was next seen coming from the gone hedge where the body, was afterwards found with marks of blood on him, and he was seen brushing his clothes, apparently to get rid of some dust. The next trace found of him was just before the starting of the train for Christchurch,, when he was noticed to have blood on him, and also in the train, wiere those in the carriage remarked about Ms getting in in that state, when be said he bad been killing a sheep. This was about 0 p.m., and after the train had gone, the body of the murdered girl was found by two boys in a hole in the gorse fence in, the locality towards winch he and the girl were seen going. The Wood on the prisoner’s clothes was microscopically examined, and found to be the blood of some creature which suckled its young, but could not be sworn to as human blood, lumbers of spots were found on the prisoner’s legs, and on being questioned he said they were only pimples, and that no gorse prickles could be found on him; but on a medical examination being made, a number of gorse prickles were found where the skin was marked. The Prisoner, when arrested, denied having had a knife on the day of the murder, but two witnesses swore to having seen a pocket-knife in Jus possession on that day, and identified the knife found in a boal tub on the veswi where prisoner was arrested as the knife they saw. The Crown Prosecutor made an able address to the jury. Mr Joynt, prisoners counsel, in addressing the jury, argued that the girl seen in the prisoner’s company just before the murder was committed was not satisfactorily identified as the deceased girl, and that the identification of the prisoner as the man seen as coming from the scene of the murder soon after the time the murder must have been committed, was not sufficiently clear to justify the jury taking away the prisoner’s Me. The ktufe was not perfectly identified, and there waj a discrepancy in the evidence as to prisoner s clothes, while he himself was not Proved to have been thoroughly recognised as the man who came from the paddock where the girl was afterwards found. His Honor having summed up, the jury retired for twelve minutes, *° courfc > announced the verdict of Guilty. His Honor assumed the black cap. and passed sentence of death, and the prisoner was unmoved.

(YVom our own correspondents.)

« Mdrceris trial concluded at half-past four on Saturday. Mr Joynt could not point to any break in the chain of evidence. The Judge summed up very shortly, and the jury were ohly absent from court for a quarter of an hour. Jrrisoner. on being asked if he had anything to say, saio, If fifty juries found me guilty, I am not tbe man who did it.” Sentence of death having been passed, Mercer was immediately removed to Lyttelton gaol