CHILD MURDERED

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1763, 11 December 1917, Page 3

CHILD MURDERED

A BRUTAL CRIME./ Christchurch, Dec. 9. The three-year-old child Donald Lewis Garrick, wdio was found murdered this morning, was the central figure in a sensational incident in February, 1915, when a resident of River Road, Dallington, found the child (then an infant three weeks old) in the hollow of a willow tree. Subsequently the child's mother, a single woman named Winifred Carrick, received two years’ imprisonment for abandoning the child. The infant was committed to a Government receiving home, whence it was licensed out to'Richard Thomas Burns, labourer, of Clifton Street, Addington. Bums found the child’s body this morning, about 6 o’clock, in his garden, with its head smashed in, evidently by a spade. It is not clear how the child got into the garden, or whether in fact the crime was committed actually at the spot where the body was found. When Burns found the body, the child had evidently been dead for some time, though the body was not apparently cold. If the crime was committed in the yard it seems certain there could have been little or no outcry on the part of the hapless little victim, and it seems very probable also that it must have been committed prior to 5 a.m., as next door there w'ere people sleeping in a tent in their yard, and they heard nothing to disturb them up to about 5 a.m., when they rose.

The inquest on the child opened this afternoon. Dr Scott stated that the cause of death was laceration of the brain duo to a fracture of the skull. In the post mortem he had found wounds and bruises on. the tips of the middle fingers and the forefinger of the left hand, as if the child had put up its hand in order to protect itself. There was also a large bruise on the forehead. All the organs were healthy. A screw-wrench and a spade were found near the body. The Coroner; The fracture could have been done by a spade 1 ? Witness: Yes, it is consistent with a wound caused by a blow with a spade. Dr Scott added (hat the head had been forced into the soft ground, which had been dug up. When the body was raised the head had formed a distinct cup in the ground, and it gave the impression that the child was struck first, and then was forced into the ground. The inquest was adjourned. A later message says that Detective Gibson arrested Winifred Carrick, the mother of the child, Donald Lewis Garrick, on a charge of murder. ACCUSED WOMAN REMANDED. Christchurch, Dec. 10, At the Police Court this morning, Winifred Garrick was charged with the wilful murder of the child Donald Leslie Carrick, at Addington, on .Saturday morning, On the application of the police, the case was adjourned to December 18th.