JURY UNABLE TO AGREE

Evening Star, Issue 21751, 20 June 1934, Page 9

JURY UNABLE TO AGREE

THE WAGGA WAGGA MURDER 6 TRIAL OF MRS ANDERSON Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. SYDNEY, Juno 19. At the Criminal Court to-day Mrs Lilian Anderson was on trial for the murder of her husband. The jury was unable to agree and was locked up for the night. Mrs Anderson in the course of her defence startled the court by declaring that her late husband told her he murdered Percy Smith, for which Edward Morey was convicted and sentenced to death. She also denied murdering her husband, but added: “If I shot him it must have been an accident.”

Edward Morey, who was brought from the gaol, declared that he did not know Mrs Anderson and had never seen her in his life. The Crown Prosecutor described Mrs Anderson’s defence as cowardly and an insult to the intelligence of the jury, [A previous message read as follows: —At the inquiry at Wagga Wagga into the death of Moncrieff Anderson, who was shot in the head, the coroner returned a verdict that Anderson was murdered, and committed his widow for trial on a charge of murder. The police produced evidence that Mrs Anderson, unknown to her late husband, carried on correspondence with Edward Morey, who was recently sentenced to death for the murder of Percy Smith. Letters were also written by Morey from gaol to the accused woman. Anderson was a Crown witness against Morey.]