KILLED ON HONEYMOON.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1261, 20 June 1914, Page 4

KILLED ON HONEYMOON.

YOUNG WIFE SHOT BY HUSBAND. The shouting of a wife on a liner while she was listening to the band was described at Liverpool Assizes recently, when Alberto Oliveiry Coelho, a Portuguese, was indicted for murder on the Mgh ‘■cas. The couple had usee on a honey mu.,;; voyage to Kio m the Royal Mail liner Deseado.

When two days out from Lisbon, the prisoner, it was .-ulegcd, entered the social hall, where bis wife was listening to the ship's band, and spoke to her. He then left, but returned and fired two shots with a revolver. She fell dead. The prisoner was left in custody at Rio until the Deseado called again on the homeward trip, when he was brought to Liverpool. It was stated that the woman arrived in Lisbon from Rio in December, and was followed shortly after by the prisoner. They were married in Oporto in January.

Counsel for the defence said it was fair to draw the inference that the prisoner was fond of the woman, whom he bad followed across the world. He committed the act “without rhyme or reason,’’ without the slightest provocation. It was not an uncommon thing for foreigners to carry revolvers, and counsel suggested that the prisoner shot his wife on the impulse of the moment.

He asked the jury to say, after hearing medical evidence, that the prisoner was insane at the time of the tragedy, though medical men ,vould not say he was insane now.

The only point at which Coelho evinced interest in the proceedings was when the jury returned into court with their verdict and it was explained to him in Portuguese, the interpreter standing on the right of the judge. “My wife wanted to put me in an asylum when we reached Rio,” declared Coelho passionately in his native tongue. “I am not guilty because I didn’t understand what I did. I wanted to commit suicide. ”

Putting on the black cap, the judge, speaking a few words at a time, then pausing that they could be translated to the prisoner, passed sentence. The jury bad rejected, be said, the plea of insanity put forward in the prisoner’s defence, and the law allowed but one sentence.

Coelho flung up his hands in a gesture of hopeless despair, and was forcibly removed to the cells.