WAIMATE MURDER CASE.

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 56, 7 March 1901, Page 3

WAIMATE MURDER CASE.

EVIDENCE OF ACCUSED’S DAUGHTER. Tun following is a fuller report of tho evidence given by a daughter of accused in tho AYaimatc murder case : Catherine McCarthy, 19 years, daughter, of accused, said that on January lQth, 1895, an old man came to their house at AVaihao, from tho direction of Mr Kilworth’s, across the fence, and round to

the front door, which lie tried to open Failing to do this, lie tried to kick it open lie said nothing, but went to the back, which was also locked, witness did not know by whom. lie kickod, and asked to be let in. Witness heard nothing else. Her father was in the stable, and came across with her brothors, Jeremiah and Michael. Her father asked what he wanted, and ho said, “ This is my place.” Her father told him to go away, but he would not. Her father then struck him with a stick like an axe handle several times. The man fell, and McCarthy continued striking him. She could not say where he struck him. The man cried out, but what ho said she could not remember. He tried to arise, but fell again, crying that ho was hurt. Her father lifted him and took him to a fence. Witness was watching from a window, about six or seven feet away. Her father threw the man over the fence, and got the wheelbarrow and took him as far as the gate. The' man stopped there half an hour, her brother Jeremiah and her mother going chit to him. Her father then took him down the road to the “ hollow.” Witness went outside to watch. She could not sec what happened in the hollow. She saw the man in the hollow next afternoon. She heard someone calling in the night. She heard her father, sister, and mother up during the night. Her three sisters slept with her. Her father said next morning someone was roaring in the night. Her brother wont to Oamaru on tho 10th. Her father sent Michael with some tea and bread to the old man. In the afternoon she went with her father and sisters in a dray, and passed the hollow. Ernest Davis went with them. She saw the old man. Witness here corroborated tho statement of Ernest Davis I with regard to her father’s actions. Her | father sent some tea and bread and butter to tho old man, and at two o’clock she went with her father and Annie, Mary, and Ellen in a dray to the turnip paddock. She had to pass the hollow before getting there. They met Earnest Davis, and lie went with them. She saw the old man lying beside the road. Her father out of the dray, and asked the man what was the matter with him, and was answered that his leg was poisoned. He gave the man some tea, bread, and scones. The turnip paddock was half a mile from the house. She had been with her father and the others to the turnip paddock before for the same purpose ; hut scones and tea were not taken ou.tlie previous occasions. It was four o’clock when they returned.' The man was then on the other side of the road. Her father did not pull up or speak to him. At eight next morning, her father left for Waibao railway station with Annie and Michael, to go to Oamaru. She did not know what they went for. They went in a trap. She was inside the house, and could see them when they got to the place where they had seen the old mail on the previous afternoon. She saw her father put the. old man in the trap and take him in the direction of the cross roads. Witness afterwards heard that he was found dead that night. The police came to the house. Her father told her and her sisters and brothers to tell the police that he did not hit the old man. The witness gave her evidence very straightforwardly-, and without a tremor. Under a stringent cross-examination by Mr Eaymond, she also was the same. She had told the police in 1595 what her father had told her to say. She gave the, new evidence to Fitzgerald a week after her father had been arrested for nicest, about January 23rd, 1901. She told no one else, She had never told her mother or sister, .