MURDER TRIAL DRAMA

Hokitika Guardian, 18 February 1929, Page 8

MURDER TRIAL DRAMA

COUNSEL AND A WITNESS. After throe days’ trial at Leeds Assizes, Benjamin Anna ige, aged 38, a hoot repairer, of SliHlield, was yesterday round not guilty of the murder of his wife and 110 w>*“ discharged. Armitagc, who trembled from l ead to foot when 'the jury’s verdict was 1 niton need, fell hack in the arms of two warders. The prison doctor held smelling stills in front of his nose an-i Armitagc was carried out of the dock in it semi-conscious stale. The woman was found dea l -n the collar of house, having be-'* 1 strangled and mutilated with blows Horn a pickaxe. Armitagc on path denied bis guoi. . MURDER “SLEUtAfIST.” Air Jardine, K.U., ad Ire,sing the jury for Armitagc, ss'.d fm was unable to dear away tiie mystery of the woman ‘s death. There was, however a man who had given cvnlnue m the case of whom he feeuusd) tiller considerable thought and hesitation, had asked many questions-- , mini who had been in a lunatic asylum and who lived alone next door. That man had g'von then an accent of his mo vein nets in the oar’-v part of the morning—a slnU'inent unsuppored it was odious lo have to ask these questions but the jury must not forget the curiou mentality of the man who posed as a specialist in murder cases had filled his mind with the the of P (’. Lut■l Creed, uiitl Mi»« Hargreaves. PWshcffield.