MUNN ON TRIAL

Hokitika Guardian, 21 May 1930, Page 6

MUNN ON TRIAL

THE DEFENCE

(By Telegraph—Press Association).

AUCKLAND, May 20

The case for the prosecution ended to-day, with the evidence of the analyst concerning the pills found in the dead woman’s bedroom on the day that accused- was arrested.

One analyst said the pills were Uux vomica. It would take twenty of the pills to give half a grain of strychnine and twenty pills would have to be taken at one time to contitute a fatal dose.-

Mr E. Northcroft, counsel for the defence, opened his address at 11.20 a.m. He began by outlining the history of the accused. He asserted that the medical evidence of the Crown was in conflict and negatived the assertion by the Crown that the woman received doses of strychnine during the whole week before her death.

COUNSEL’S LONG ADDRESS

AUCKLAND, May, 20,

The announcement that the accused would go into the witness box was made ip the Supreme Court :by Mr Northcroft in ope.ning the , case for the defence of Arthur Thomas Almm, who is charged with-‘the.,murder of his wife, Lillie May Munn, at Nortlicote on February 11..', ’ V.

“Munn is determined to face his /accusers, and to say-that lie did not .do this thing with which he ’is charged,”■said his counsel, after 'the hearing of one further‘ witness who gave evidence relative to the result' of 'the analysis of the'two pills fdund in a bottle in'a drawer in the ducheSs at Mnnn’s house.

Air Meredith,' Crown Prosecutor, then closed his case.

The remainer of the day’s sitting was occupied with Mr Northcroft’s opening address. Mr Northcroft spoke for four hours, and he still lias considerable grand to cover before leading evidence.

Mr Northcroft argued that the conduct- of accused was not consistent with; the allegation that he had slowly poisoned his wife. Counsel also attacked certain of the medical evidence claiming that the convulsions suffered by Mrs Munu did not necesHartfy conform to the type induced by strychnine! poisoning, but that they might have been caused by blood pressure. : At the time of the adjournment, Air Northcroft was propounding what he termed “alternative solutions to a very; difficult problem”- to ■ show that there were other possible hypotheses to explain how Airs Munn came to die from strychnine poisoning. „