CHILD MURDER CHARGE AGAINST STEPFATHER

Grey River Argus, 14 April 1948, Page 5

CHILD MURDER CHARGE AGAINST STEPFATHER

Evidence on the Sumner Tragedy

CHRISTCHURCH, April 13

Charged with the murder of Leslie James Boswell on February 9 at Sumner, William Eric Cooper, a nurseryman, aged 43, appeared before Mr H. P. Lawry, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court this morning. The Crown Prosecutor, Mr A. T. Donnelly, and his assistant, Mr A. W, Brown, conducted the proceedings for the Crown. Cooper-was represented by Mr J. K. Moloney, and Mr E. J. Drake.

A charge af assaulting Florence Maud Cooper on February 4 was withdrawn.

Sergeant J. B. Keartpn, official police photographer,' of Christchurch, said that on February 11 he went to Clifton, where he saw a body which was lying face down, some 30 feet down the embankment. There was a considerable quantity of blood on the face and clothing. GONE THROUGH BROOM There was no defined track from the road to where the body was lying, but whoever had left it there had ccme through the broom with it. He was present when Senior-Detec-tive F. J. Brady found a blood-cover-ed stone with a piece of bone adhering to it. Myrtle Boswell, spinster, of 303 Cuba street, Wellington, said the accused married her sister on November 17, 1947. She had first met the accused when he came to the apartment house where they were living. Her sister was living with her. In October the accused told her he was going to marry her sister. Witness said she told Cooper her sister took epileptic fits, but he said they were only bad turns. The dead child was her sister’s child and went away with them the day they were married. The accused and her sister first lived at the Savoy Private Hotel, but after about a week they returned to the apartment house until January 5. when the accused left for Christ- } church. ALLEGED THREAT About 6.30 on th? morning he left ■ for Christchurch she heard her sister call out and found her lying on the floor with Cooper hitting her. He said: “If you don’t get out, I will kill you.” They took her sister out to her mother’s room and called a constable. About 8 a.m. that day he left the house to go to Christchurch and. on January 30 her sister and boy left to go to Christchurch. Constable V. F. P. Townshend said that at 11.55 p.m. on February 9 he received a telephone call from a man who gave his name as Allan Cooper, and wha said he had recently arrived from Wellington, and that he had lost a small boy named . Boswell ar Sumner. Constable J. F. L. Hartley said that on February 10, at 7.20 a.m., a woman came into the watchhouse and gave her name as Florence Maud Cooper and reported that her child had been missing from Sumner from about 4 p.m. on February 9. ACCUSED’S MOVEMENTS

Cooper’s movements later in the afternoon were traced by several witnesses.

John Charles Quane, chemist, said that he drove his car up Clifton Terrace, and parked it near Aranoni Track about 3.50 p.m. About 4.20 p.m., he noticed a man appear round a slight bend in Clifton Terrace, walking down the terrace. This man, whom he subsequently identified in an identification parade as the accused, said: “You haven’t seen a little boy about, have you?” Quane said that he had not.

Victor George White, retired jeweller, said that at about 4.30 he saw a man, whom he now knew to be Cooper, washing his hands in a pool at the side of the road at the foot of the hill.

Other witnesses testified that Cooper caught a tram leaving Sumner at 5.22 p.m., 'and returned to the boarding house about 9 p.m.

ACCUSED’S STATEMENT TO POLICE

Alan Robertson Grant, Sergeant of Police, said that he interviewed Cooper on February 10 at the Canterbury Frozen Meat Company’s work's at Belfast, where he was working. “I intend to adopt this child,' if he is still alive”. Cooper said in a statement produced by the sergeant. Cooper said that he took the child for a walk with him up some steps at Sumner. He had seen a tram coming, and he had sent the child back to its mother. She and the bey were due to return to Wellington that night. He was not going to see them off, as he was upset, about it, Cooper’s statement continued. Cooper said that he took a tram back to Cathedral Square, and, after having a meal, he went to a picture theatre. When he returned to the boarding house, his wife asked him where the child was. He told her that he thought it was with her. His wife talked of going to the police, but he persuaded her to go back to Sumner ’with him and look for the child. After putting a telephone call, mentioned by a previous witness, Townshend, he caught the last tram back to town with his wife, and went to bed. He left for work next morning, after telling his wife to report the matter to the police. On the afternoon of February 10, continued the seirgeant, he was a member of the police party which accompanied Coonef to Sumner. Cooper, when asked by the police to show them where he had left the child, twice gave them wrong directions. A bloodstained child’s sunhat, produced in Court, was found that afternoon in a culvert near Clifton Terrace. The body was found the following day, 400’ yards up Brittan Terrace from the hat.

POLICE QUERY On February 11, said the witness, he again interviewed the accused, and asked him when he first knew of the disappearance of the child. The accused replied that it was when he got back’to the boarding house at 9 o’clock. Witness told Cooper that he must have known at 5 o’clock, when he met Quane, on Clifton Terrace, and told him that the boy was missing. “I only asked the man if he saw the boy going down the zig-zag track”, Cooper had replied. “I did not sav that the boy was missing”. REPLY TO PLEA FOR ASSISTANCE Cooper, said witness, was asked if he could help the police in their search for the boy. Cooper said: “Help you, and get myself swung? I did not murder the child. No one saw me do it. It is the job of the police to find out who did it”. James Leslie Will, orthopedic surgeon, said that Cooper’s disability was that he could not lift his hands above his hips, but the grip of his hands was good. After the Court had been sitting for five hours, Mr Donnelly said that he still had seven witnesses to call, and the Court adjourned till tomorrow.