RAMARAMA MURDER CASE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 1457, 9 October 1915, Page 2

RAMARAMA MURDER CASE.

MRS PKRRY COMMITTED FOR TRIAD.

The inquest concluded at Auckland on Thursday concerning the death of John Thomas Perry, who was murdered at Ramarama on .September 25th. The Coroner returned the following verdict“l find that John Thomas Perry was murdered by being shot through the head while lying in bed In his house at Ramarama. The evidence shows that the muzzle of the gun from which the shot was fired was held either against or within two feet of deceased’s forehead. The nature of the wound and the angle at which the shot was evidently fired render it most unlikely that the person who discharged the gun was at the time outside the room in which deceased was lying. The evidence shows that deceased's wile had for some considerable time past been improperly intimate with the witness M’Dowell, and had been partly on that account on bad terms with her husband, and had also spoken of leaving him. There is no suggestion that deceased had any enemies. Mrs Perry was in the bedroom with deceased at the time the shot was fired, and it would have been difficult tor any other person to have left the room, which was filled with moonlight, after the shot had been fired, without having been seen or heard by her. The gun, of which one barrel bad been recently discharged, was found in the house. The evidence shows, so far as Mrs Perry is concerned, a combination of motive, opportunity, and means, and an absence of any evidence tending to Implicate any body else, but, in fairness to her, in view of the fact that she now stands charged with the murder of the deceased, and in view also of tue fact that the evidence is circumstantial and inferential, I do not propose to find definitely against her, or to analyse the evidence in detail. It is sufficient to justify her being committed for trial, and it is in the interests of justice that I should not make a definite finding, which might affect the minds of the jury who will try her.” Accused was subsequently committed for trial.