THE DUNEDIN MURDERS.

Kumara Times, Issue 1087, 25 March 1880, Page 4

THE DUNEDIN MURDERS.

Further Particulars Respecting the Supposed Murderer.

[OTAGO DAIIY TIMES MARCH 19.1

On the 16th August, at the City Police Court, Butler was charged with having feloniously and burglariously entered the dwelling of Pactrick Moran, Roman Catholic Bishap of Dunedin, and stolen theare from a gold pencil-case, a binocular, and an umbrella, on the 2nd of that month. On this charge he pleaded guilty, and was committed for trial. He was then further charged with stealing from the premises of Mr G. K. Turfcon on the 6th August a gold watch, &c, valued at L4O, and was for this offence committed for trial, reserving his defence. A third charge was preferred against him on the same day of having entered the house of Thomas Sherlock Graham on the 6th August and stolen therefrom j ewellery and cash to the value of L7B. He reserved his defence in this case also, and was committed for trial. On the J 7th the Queen's Theatre charges were brought against him. Those robberies were committed on the 23rd July. The charges were for stealing two wigs, value L 5, the property of John B. Steele, comedian ; a cornet value Ll2 10s the property of William Wilson Oliver j and a brace of pistols, a flask of powder, and a box of caps, value L 5, the property of George Ward. Upon these three charges he was also committed for trial, reserving his defence. To further charges of stealing a crowbar, an overcoat, and a pair of gloves he pleaded guilty, and received a sentence from the Police Bench of three months' imprisonment. At the October (1876) sessions of the Supreme Court, before Justice Williams, Butler pleaded guilty to the six different charges of burglary, housebreaking, and larceny mentioned above, and in passing sentence his honor said :

" Prisoner Robert Butler, you have pleaded guilty to six indictments which have been found against you. One indictment is for burglary, two housebreaking, and three for larceny. I have read the statement which you have forwarded to me, and, as I have just now been informed by the Crown Prosecutor, nothing was known against you before you committed these crimes. But you ask me to take into consideration your age, position, and future. You say that you nave suffered yourself to be led away, and that you are not yet hardened in crime. That may be so. But at the same time the law must be vindicated, and a punishment sufficiently severe must be inflicted. It is not as if it was an isolated case, but it appears from your conduct that you had the intention of commencing a career of crime. I shall, in passing sentence, take into consideration that there has been nothing else against you hitherto, and that none of the crimes which you have committed have been accompanied with violence. The sentence of the Court is that you be kept in penal servitude in the Colony of New Zealand for four years." The following is a copy of the document handed by Butler to his Honor, and which was referred to by the latter : " I have to acknowledge my guilt, and do not desire to excuse it. I myself can too clearly see the magnitude and meanness of my crime to hope to make it appear less in the eyes of others. I was a stranger in a strange country ; unfortunate, unwillingly out of employment, in distress, and suffered myself to be led away. This was my condition. I state it as a matter of fact, for I am aware of its utter worthlessness as a plea. I make no defence, and do not ask you to stint the full justice of my punishment. But, your Honor, while I do not deprecate punishment and justice, I do not venture to ask for mercy. I am a young man, and I yet hope to retrieve even this disgrace. I am not one of those criminals from practice, and by inclination which society dreads. In becoming a criminal I rebelled against myself, and my ow nmind and soul seconds the law in my punishment. While I am willing to bow to the just penalty of the law, I humbly hope that if your Honor can see fit or expedient to shorten the actual term of my punishment by adding to its rigour and severity, you will be so far merciful to me and do so. I am yet of that age when I can (if I may) still hope in the future, and I venture to trust that your Honor will so deal with me that while I may be justly punished, I may not be deprived of the hope that the fairest and best and most energetic of my future years will be spared to me. My own sense of my position, my sense of how I must appear to others, makes me to hesitate to say that I feel that I have felt contrition. Some glimmerings of it' might appear to your Honor from the fact that I have submitted to my position with patience, and that although I might, with some hopes of success deny part of tny crime, I have fully, and of my free will, acknowledged all; I have rendered all the assistance within my power to repair the mischief I had done in restoring, or causing to be restored, the property that had been taken. I trust that your Honor will pity my hopes of a redeemed future, and extend some mercy to me. My heart is not callous and hardened by crime, but softened by hope, that I trust will not be crushed out of'it. Recollect, sir, it is not leniency I ask, but mercy ; that your Honor will inflict such a penalty as shall be rigorous and severe, and a well-deserved punishment, while Btill I may not be weighed down by the despairing misery of knowing that (lie best, the most valuable, and the ino*t redeemable of,my future years shall be wasted in the living death of a prison " From the above, it will be seen that the man now arrested for the suspected com-'

mission of the murder of Mr and Mrs Grant nd child, and for the attempted arson of the premises, is amaii having a very unenviable notoriety as a criminal. Of course in the meantime we have no knowledge as to the evidence the police have apainst him in connection with this crime. But we understand he is also suspected of being concerned in the attempted burglary at Mr G. P, Parquhar's residence on Friday night last ; and if the supposition is a correct one that Mr Stamper's house, which was burned down on that morning, was also visited by a burglar, there is the possibility that he was the offender.