ALLEGED ATTEMPTED MURDER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 462, 15 June 1909, Page 4

ALLEGED ATTEMPTED MURDER.

A SINGULAR CASE.

A very singular case occupied the Wangauui Supreme Court for two days during last week. The circumstances are to the following effect:—On February 22nd last two meu named Amos Chatfield and Frederick Garlick left Ohutu for Taihape, a couple of miles distant. They were intimate friends, and Garlick accompanied Chatfield, at the latter’s request. They intended to return home in time to do milking about 8 o’clock at night. Garlick led Chatfield’s horse home, and declared that he had thrown Chatfield into the' Hautapu river. He was evidently drunk, and his actions during the next hour or so were of an exceptional nature. He reiterated that he had killed Chatfield, and threatened to kill Mrs Chatfield, whom he wanted to come in a cart and look for her husband. Eventually Garlick got his gun, and about ten o’clock was shot through the shoulder, the bone being shattered and the flesh torn away. Witness declared that the wound was self inflicted. While Garlick was terrorising the village a party had gone in search of Chatfield, and found him lying amongst shrubs some fourteen feet down the bank of the river. The shrubs had stopped his fall over the precipice seventy feet deep. He was drunk, and did not awaken till after he was pulled on to the road. The bats of both men were found lying on the road, and there were marks as of a man having been dragged across the road to the edge of the bank. In Court Chatfield stated that when he and Garlick reached Taihape they had some beer, but left for home quite sober, both being of temperate habits, Garlick bought a bottle of draught whisky, and this they drank going along the road. Chatfield had two drinks, and then lost consciousness, knowing nothing more till awakened by the rescuers. Garlick, in giving evidence on his own behalf, said that Chatfield got so drunk that he fell .off his horse. Garlick pulled him to the side of the road out of danger, and Chatfield then rolled over the cliff. Garlick tried to pull him up, but could not, and then at Chatfield’s suggestion went for a cart, and Mrs Chatfield. From that point his mind was blank, and he knew nothing of his subsequent actions at Ohutu.

The jury retired, aud after half-an-hour returned a verdict of not guilty of attempted murder. The jury found Garlick not guilty of intimidation and attempted suicide, holding that he was not in a rational state. Accused was then discharged.