MOTHER CHARGED WITH MURDER OF INFANT DAUGHTER

Grey River Argus, 25 March 1948, Page 7

MOTHER CHARGED WITH MURDER OF INFANT DAUGHTER

A King Country Tragedy

P.A. OHAKUNE, March 24 Margaret Mary Theresa Loo was charged in the Ohakune Court before Messrs H. F. L. Delamer and G. Sandford, Justices of Peace, yesterday, with the murder of hey four and a half -year-old daughter, .Gale Kingi, on December ,3, 1947.. Thirteen of seventeen witnesses in the case were heard yesterday, and the case was adjourned until this morning. Mr N. re. Bam (Wanganui) prosecuted. Mr G. H. R. Skelton (Auckland) was counsel lor the defence.

The family rose at day-break on Ihe day that Gale wenl to hospital, and twice during the morning his mother smacked Gale witn her nand, stated Robert Kingi, young son of Loo. Later in the day he saw Gale lying on a bed. She had injured her head by falling on the concrete outside the back door. His mother did nothing to stop the bleeding, and roi the rest of the day Gale did not speak cry, or moan —she just lay there. He did not see his mother hit her with anything but her hand. On December 3, she was staying at her sister’s house, about a quarter of a mile from the .uoo's home, at Makaranui, stated Rose Ann Bergersen. Between 7 and 7.30 p.m., the accused, Mrs Loo called, and asked to use the telephone to call a doctor, saying that the little girl had fallen in trying 7 to take a rocking horse outside and had cut her head. She stated that the accident occurred at about 4 p.m., and, when asked wny she had not come sooner, she replied that she could not leave the girl. Witness received a message from the hospital at about 7 a.m. the next day, but when she called at the Loo’s’ house, nobody answered. Witness went inside and she found Loo mopping up the hearth. When witness "told her that she had bad news, Loo answered that she already knew.

Mrs Loo did not seem to be as fond of the girl as she was of the boy, said a neighbour, Elizabeth O’Connor. Sometimes. Gale had bruises on her body, and,' on one occasion, she had a black eye. Witness thought Mrs Loo was bad tempered, out the children, who were very well mannered, did not seem to be afraid of her. GRAVE INJURY ON TOP OF SKULL An examination at his surgery showed the child to be deeply unconscious, her breathing stertorous, and her colour blue, stated Le.wis Edmund Jordan, a doctor practising at Ohakune. Her condition was grave. He found an inch-long depression on top of the skull. When questioned, Loo stated that the child had stumbled on the stairs while carrying her rocking horse. She was vague as to what had happened, but she said that it occurred at 4 p.m. At the Raethihi hospital he shaved the child's head in preparation for an operation, and he found a second injury, an abrasion, which was negligible from a medicai viewpoint. The injuries could have been caused by a blow or bv coming into contact with a round object. "I he blow must have been a severe one, and would be difficult to believe that a light child would cause such an injury by falling down two steps,” added Dr Jordan. He did not think that the injury could have been caused by contact with the bars of a chair. While the doctor , was out of the surgery, Mrs Loo repeated part of her explanation, and asked if Ute doctor would believe it, stated Gladys Edith Garmonsway, receptionist to Doctor Jordan. She replied that she thought he would. GREYMOUTH DOCTOR’S EVIDENCE

Dr Jordan’s description of the child's condition when it was admitted to the Raethihi hospital was comirmeu by John Ilario Mclntyre, a doctor, now of C-reymoulh, and formerly oi Raethihi. It was conceivable that the injury could have been caused by falling on to the sharp edge of concrete steps. He claimed that he would have expected the skin to be broken by the sharp edge, but this did not always occur in such circumstances. The injury could not have been caused by the child falling against a chair. It was clear from medical examination by the two doctors that the child had suffered severe cerebral injuries, said Phillip Patrick Lynch, pathologist, of Wellington. Considering the location of the depressed area on the top of the skull, he thought that it was extremely improbable that it could have been caused by an accidental fall, even if the child had pitched forward violently. The descriptions given by two previous medical witnesses were more consistent with direct violence..

Mrs Loo told her that the child/was to be adopted, but that the adoption had not been legalised, stated Marguerite Muemann, formerly a nurse at Raethihi hospital. Mrs Loo sain that she had asked the child to move a chair, and, in pulling it towards her, the child had fallen over backwards with the chair on top of her. She might have mentioned a rocking chair, but no reference was made to a rocking horse. CRUELTY ALLEGED “It was so severe that I could not stand it,” stated William Thomas Blackmore .formerly of Makaranui, in describing a thrashing given to the girl by Loo. “I was going to go over and give her some of her oyvn medicine, but I changed my mind. Her attitude to children was ‘a little over the fence? She was more harsb/vvith the girl than with the boy. When she appeared, the children cringed. They were afraid of her. On an occasion when Gale stayed at his place, his wife found, when bathing the child, that a section of her scalp had come away Connecting this with something he had heard in a bus. he had complained to the Welfare Officer at Ohakune.