ELSIE HOLLAND’S DEATH.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 1026, 5 August 1911, Page 4

ELSIE HOLLAND’S DEATH.

MRS. O’SHAUGHNESSY BEFORE THE COURT. Auckland, August 3. The Police Court was crowded to-day, when the preliminary hearing of the case of Martha Jane O’Shaughnessy, charged with the murder of Elsie Alexandra Holland, was proceeded with before Mr Fraser, S.M. Mr Mays, Crown Prosecutor, stated that he only proposed to proceed that day with the main charge against Mrs Martha Jane O’Shaughnessy of murder, and to ask that the other prisoners, who would be charged with being accessories after the fact, should be remanded until the following day. Mr Singer, for the defence, said he had no objection to that course being taken, and intimated that he proposed to apply that each case should be taken separately. THREE ACCUSED REMANDED. The other accused persons—Mrs Hartley, Mrs Hassell and J. E. O’Shaughnessy were then remanded until the following day, and the hearing of the charge against Mrs O’Shaughnessy, who was accommodated with a chair behind her counsel, was proceeded with. Mr Mays then proceeded to open the case for the prosecution. He said the deceased woman, Elsie Alexandra Holland, accompanied by a man named James Warner, went to within a few yards of the house occupied by Mrs O’Shaughuessy on Monday night, June 12th. Warner went away, and deceased, who was carrying a dress basket, walked on. That was the last occasion on which she was seen alive outside of accused’s house. The story told by the inmates of the house was that deceased came there shortly after r 1 o’clock p.m., not on Monday, but on Tuesday, June 13th, and was then carrying a dress basket. She asked to be admitted. Mrs Hassell opened the door to her, she said, and then went away, and Miss Holland wandered into a bedroom, prepared herself for bed, went to bed, and died within an hour. That was the explanation given to the police by the inmates of the house. AN IMPROBABLE STORY. Of course, that story was untrue on the face of it, and could be disproved without any difficulty at all, but it was not so easy to prove what actually took place. It was perfectly clear that the woman died of blood-poisoning caused by the performance upon her of an illegal operation, and that she died about midnight on Tuesday, June 13th. The medical evidence went to show strongly that the operation which caused her death could have taken place on the Monday night, and the death could have occurred on the Tuesday. The post mortem examination showed that an illegal operation had been performed, and clumsily performed. No one except the accused could say at what hour that operation was performed, but the medical men would say that it was not only possible but probable that the operation was performed on the Monday night. A SINISTER CIRCUMSTANCE. Had the matter rested there it would have been bad enough, but it was quite clear that some person at the moment of death, or immediately afterwards, placed perchloride of mercury in deceased’s mouth. There was corrosion on the mouth, lips and throat, and the prosecution claimed to know now who put the poison in the deceased’s mouth, and why it was done. The position, shortly put, was that a woman had been murdered in the house. The prosecution held that the principal person, and the person who performed the operation, was the accused. i After the tnedical evidence had been given the hearing of the case was adjourned till to-morrow.