HORRIBLE MURDER IN LYTTELTON.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 184, 11 January 1875, Page 2

HORRIBLE MURDER IN LYTTELTON.

The most horrible murder ever perpetrated in Canterbury was committed on Saturday afternoon in Lyttelton. A girl named Isabella Thompson, about thirteen years of age, left her home in Dampier's Bay about 4.45 p.m., for the purpose of proceeding to the new school buildings to get tickets for the pic-nic to Kiccarton, in connection with the opening of the Borough Schools. She arrived at the schools at 6 p.m., left that place at 5.15 p.m., and was seen again about 5.30 p.m., in company with a man, described as being of a medium height, wearing grey clothes and a French peak cap. The boy who saw her, Frederic Murie, states that he* saw the girl and man go down into a gully in Canterbury street, above Mr H. B. Webb's house, and nearly opposite Captain Sproul's, an,d that after remaining there about five minutes, they returned and walked up ttipon street. The girl was crying, but walking alongside the man. She was never seen alive again. About 6.15 p.m. two boys, named respectively John Baily and David Simmons, went after some cows in Ripon street; a refractory cow went up close to the Rev F. Pember's fence, and of course the boy Bailey followed it, glancing through a hole in the corner of the fence, he saw a white .cambric pocket-handkerchief, and looking further, out of curiosity, he saw what he thought was a drunken man lying there. Both then went away, and told a boy named Rouse about it. He went up with his elder brother, and looking through saw the face was blood-stained, and that it was that of a dead girl. The younger boy was sent for the police, who were there by half-past six, and an examination was made. The girl was lying with her clothes dragged from the lower part of her body, and her drawers torn to pieces. The dress had aiso been burst open at the waist, 'and up thetleft breast, her head was lying down the hill, and her throat was cut from ear to ear. The murderer no* doubt had attempted to violate her, and when she called out, had seized her by the throat with his left hand to stifle her screams, and with his right had cut her throat c f rom right to left. He had cut the right side superficially, and close under the chin, to spare his hand, but the left was cut to the bone, the head being nearly half severed from the body, when found, was blanched, every drop of blood having been extracted. There were two transverse cuts running into one, and the weapon used was probably the larger blade of a penknife with a rounded point. The officers immediately took the corpse to the station and placed it in one of the cells. Dr Rouse was sent for at once and examined it, and even then, about seven, the abdomen was still warm, and he gave it as his opinion that she could not have been dead much more than an hour. She was identified by her father, who is a shipwright in the employ of Mr Hawkins. The place where the murder was committed was in Ripon street, which runs from Canterbury street to Oxford street. The upper side of this street is occupied by a thick gorse fence at the end nearest Canterbury street, enclosing the.parsonage garden, and a post and rail fence, which runs as far as the new cutting in Oxford street. The street is unformed and rough, and there is no house but the parsonage on the upper side, and that is partially enveloped in trees. On the lower side, however, are several houses, some of |'

Uiem silnitrd nxnctly oppoeite the scene of the murder, which was at the corner in the middle of the street, where the gorse and post-and-rail fences joined. The street being only a chain wide, these houses were within that distance of the spot, and a family were actually moving into one of these houses that afternoon, The parsonage was further,, but one of the servants had been sitting in the precise spot where the deed was done till after 4 p.m. Nothing was found on the spot but the handkerchief, on which was the stain of blood, as-though the knife had been rubbed on it, and the girl's hat. When the body was first discovered it was a wonder to all where the blood could be, but it was soon seen that the murderer had scraped the dead gorse together and placed it over it, as it was evident that he had then thrust the body of his victim lower down nearer the hedge from the outside of which the head was seen. There is a gap in the fence above the corner where they must have gone into the garden, which is full of fruit trees. The two tickets that the girl bad procured at the schools were found lying within a foot of the corpse. Miss Rouse, who lives with her parents at the corner of Hipon aud Oxford streets, deposed to having seen a man in a grey suit going asfast as he could towards the railway station. The commotion in Lyttelton was* very great. All business was stopped, everyone seeming to be paralysed at the enormity of the crime, and the gloom was added "to when* the news came that Messrs 0. N. Nalder and Sale had been drowned by the upsetting of the Ripple at Akaroa. The Christchurch police were of course communicated with, and it was soon discovered that a man similar to the one described had been seen at the Heathcote Valley in the last carriage of the 6 p.m. train from Lyttelton, by the youth who collected the tickets there, and that he had bloody hands. A man named Alfred Osborne wa* suspected, arrested, and brought to Lyttelton by the 3 p.m. train yeßterday, in charge of Detective Feast, and was identified by two children. : •'-

FURTHER PARTICULARS. This Dat. The man Osborne was not identified by Miss Bouse. It appears that he was imprisoned, not for rape, but for indecent exposure to children. A man named John Mercer was discharged from the Canterbury schooner on Saturday forenoon, and was ie« commended by Captain Russell of that vess< 1, to Captain O'Brien, of the Cleopatra, as a cook and steward. When he went off to fetch his clothes from the Canterbury he appeared to be in an excited state, *fed threw a number of ships' stores and other article! ovexboard. He went on board the Cleopatra at about 330 p.m on Saturday, and it was rem irked by the mate that the man was apparently a little the worse for liquor. He left the Cleopatra to go on shore about 5 p.m. (not after), dressed in a grey suit, with a cheese-cutter c«p, and did not return on board that vessel till about 10 a.m. on Sunday morning. He was arrested on Monday morning at 6 a.m. on the charge of wilful destruction of property. In searching his clothes a pair of bloodstained trousers and jacket were found in his swag, and we hear he explained their presence there by stating that he bad killed a sheep in Wellington. A number of thorns were extracted from his knees and hands when he was examined. These are to be compared under the microscope with gone thorns, by Dr. Bouse. There are no signs of violation on the body of the girl. The man Mercer is said to have escaped from the Buller, being wanted there on a charge of indecent assault on a little girl. A post-vwrtem examination was held at the morgue this morning, on the girl's body, by Drs Bouse and McDonald, whose evidence will be taken before the coroner this afternoon. There is little doubt that the children were so excited when they identified the man Osborne that their evidence is little to be depended on, and Miss Bouse certainly failed to identify him. There is still great excitement in port with regard to the matter. The scene of the murder was visited by hundreds of people yesterday. Mercer seems quite callous, and explained the thorns found in his leg by saying he was subject to pimples on the knees. There is a scratch on his nose, and a slight abrasion on one of the hands.