ALLEGED MURDER OF AN INFANT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 464, 1 July 1909, Page 3

ALLEGED MURDER OF AN INFANT.

Napier, June 29,

At the Supreme Court this morning, before Mr Justice Chapman, Alice Maud Shepherd, aged 27, and John Cline, aged 26, were charged with the murder of the infant child of the female accused at Wood villa on or about May 12, 1909. Both accused pleaded not guilty, and were defended. His Honour refused an application for a separate trial of the male accused. The evidence went to show that the woman, who was a domestic servant at Mangatoro, in the Dannevirke district* arrived in Woodville, accompanied by Cline, who was a roadman In the employ of the Weber County Council. They took rooms at a hotel and the woman is believed to have given birth to a child. The landlady of the hotel saw the man going into the woman’s room and ordered them away. They shifted to a boardinghouse,, and afterwards returned to Mangatoro, A boy. who was fishing tor eels in the Creek at Woodville on May 31, found a game-bag containing the dead body of an infant and other things, and weighted with stones. It was deposed that the male accused had purchased this bag in Woodville. When the child’s body was examined t was found that there was a piece ot twine tied tightly twice round the neck.

The Crown Prosecutor said he was informed that the string was not taken off the body. I His Honour : Well, it ought to have been.

Dr Dawson deposed that the body was that of a fully-developed male child. He was of opinion that the child bad been born alive, and that the cause of death had been strangulation.

The evidence was not concluded when the Court adjourned for the day.

VERDICT OF NOT GUILTY.

Napier, June 30. The hearing of the charge was resumed to-day. The police evidence detailing the arrest of the accused, went to show that Cline denied obsolutely ever having been in Woodville. Shepherd at first denied all knowledge of the affair, but subsequently confessed that she had given birth to a child in a boardnghouse at Woodville, and had strangled it. She stated that Cline was with her the whole of the time, and that he took the infant away in a bag.

No evidence was called for the defence.

Mr Corn ford; fh.e Crown Prosecutor, in his address to the jury, spoke of the case as one that was unprecedented in his experience. Mr Lusk, counsel for the female accused, said accused had been on, a holiday visit to Woodville, and the very fact that improper relations existed between them was sufficient reason for their assumption of false names, and the secrecy of their movements. After the birth of a child, the woman would be physically incapable of committing the deed with which she was charged. Counsel contended that the woman believed the infant was dead when she tied the string round its neck.

The jury returned a verdict of not guilty, Other charges against the accused, arising out of the same affair, have yet to be dealt with.