The Abel Smith Street Murder.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue III, 4 October 1890, Page 2

The Abel Smith Street Murder.

From the N. Z, Tunes we learn the following pnrtiou'ars of the murder of a child by its father on Wednesday last :

Dean is a young man who has y>l*e 1 as an expressma-i in this city for porno lioif., and ha^ always borne <m PxesH^nt charactoi 1 . Not long ago he went "ut strike w'th other me'i ; n the sam > bus'n ss>, and during tlio last few (lavs his circumstances hay» ca^sol lrm Mi«'.h nv ; o,ty as to iri lnpe n sort of melancho'id. 0"i Moikl iy lit t, as Dt an rambled in r*nnv(»m ( i m nr.d otheri wis" gay i clicifion : r>{ un= : 'p.! j mftnta eond't'o i. his wife cons J ed D ■ Rawson who told h rto waitch i him carefully. Until yesterday, however, he had not been at all violent. At about 11 o'clock he was sitting rocking his youngest child, an infant, when he gofc up and went out into the yard where the little girl Lily was playing. A. few minutes later he came in and said to his wife in a matter- of -fact tone, " Jessie, I've killed Lilly " Mrs Dean did nc* suspect that he spoke seriously, and replied, " Oh no, you've never done that George." "Yes I have," he said, " I did. it with an axe. She's out in the woodshed, dead!" Mrs Dean at once ran into th« shed ; and there, sure enough, was the little child dead — killed by a heavy blow on the left temple from an axe. The axo with which the blow had been given lay beside the body, its < dge stained with blond. Apparently the man held the child down on j the around and attempted to cut its head off. Mrs Dean at once gave an alarm to her neighbours, and Dr Rawson was sent for. It was, of course, too late for him to give any assistance.