"YOU HAVE SHOT ME, DARLING!"

NZ Truth, Issue 1143, 27 October 1927, Page 7

"YOU HAVE SHOT ME, DARLING!"

Tragic Love Story of Married Woman Who Eloped From New Zealand With Modern Bluebeard HOME WRECKED AND HER CHILDREN LEFT BEHIND (From "N.Z. Truth's" Spe cial Brisbane Representative.) . Wronged by a married man with a penchant for illicit love and home-breaking, Mrs. Amy McPherson left her husband and her bairns m New Zealand and eloped to Australia. A short association with Denis Moynahan, m Queensland, enabled the woman to see what a ghastly and terrible mistake she had made. Quarrels arose, she pleaded vainly to get back to the Dominion, and Moynahan struck and abused her. Then came his death— swift and terrible — from a gunshot Now the woman stands face to face with a murder charge.

jMimiMimuiimuimwimmiiimiMiiiiiiiwimimiiiiimmiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimmimm FEW and far between are those who will stand by one who faces such a grim indictment, but this unhappy woman, m her hours of agony, has found succour. New-found friends came to the police court to sustain her. The Tully (Queensland) branch of the Country "Women's Association intervened and provided a bed and many comforts to alleviate the dread days of suspense between her committal and her trial — listed for the Cairns session of the Supreme Court m a fortnight's time. And the facts stated above are some of those which will be presented to the jury. It was at Murphy's farm at Midgenoon, a small settlement nestling beside the railway a few miles north of Tully, Queensland, that Denis Moynahan was fatally shot on September 20. Last week Amy McPherson, the woman who had lived with him as his wife, was charged at the local police court with murder. She is of average height, sparely shaped, with blue eyes and protruding eyebrows.

iiiiiimiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiimmiimiiiiiiiiiiimiiitmiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiniMiiiiiiitiiin She wore a low-neck dress m court, with a black bow-tie, and there was a ring on her finger. Two Queensland friends sat with her during the proceedings, a testimony that, though she is far away from her home m New Zealand, she does not lack for sympathy — a sympathy evoked by her plight and sorrowful history and not by her personality, which is quiet and not at all arresting. A string of witnesses regarding the tragedy and the dead man, unfolded the history of an adventurer who loved illicitly, and whose love, it seemed, was often tinctured with cruelty.

F. H. McKernon, a laborer, was one who knew the parties intimately, having been ' acquainted with them m New Zealand

and at Cairns, Queensland, and he threw much light on the mystery m his testimony, which, linked with that of others, made a fairly comprehensive recent history of the dead man and the unhappy woman who is to answer to a jury for his passing. Denis John Moynahan, believed to have been born at Bundaberg or Maryborough, was one of 13 m a family, and naturally did not receive a lot of exclusive attention from his parents — busy bringing up such a large family. At the early and immature age of 18 he ventured into marriage, but the union was not destined to lead to lifetime happiness, so the young man cast off home ties and sought New Zealand as the shore for a different type of existence. The crisp climate apparently agreed

with him, for he stayed, developing into a sturdy man of good physique and appearance.

He seemed to have had a. particular 1 eye for married women, and his history, rightly or wrongly, describes him as a home smasher, whose motto was "pleasure and a good time always." It was at a dance m New Zeai land that he met Mrs. Amy McPherson, who was then living with I her husband m a nice home. Somehow he exerted a fascination for her and they became friends. "Denny" she called him m those happier days. Denny suggested to her m a way m which he must have been skilled that her married life was not her destiny. He painted the picture of lands afar — travel, with all its lure and glamor for those who have never been anywhere far outside their home town or country. Posing as a young man with no ties and some cash m hand, he insidiously, proposed an elopement m which she was to betray her marriage vows and travel to Australia with him, where, according to the picture he painted, happiness awaited them together. She left the comfortable home where her husband and her children lived and cherished her m Auckland, and set off with Moynahan as recently as last January, going to Queensland to live with him as his wife at Cairns, where she worked. Her illicit honeymoon was soon converted from a pleasure jaunt into a hard-work contract. Further she found that he had deceived her, and a-t the preliminary trial she told the police that he had two families m Queensland and that m New Zealand he left one woman with two children and another with „Miin'iiimiiiiiiiiiiii'ii ihiiiiiiiihii

"A man who bade fair to earn the title of a modern Bluebeard," declared a police officer who investigated the affairs of the dead man. According to the evidence of McKernon, the couple quarrelled at Cairns, where he stayed m the same boardinghouse. Tiffs were the regular thing, declared this witness.

Called Him "Denny"

iimnimmmmmmiiiimiiimiiiiiiinmiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimiiiiiimiiiiiiiiimuniiMiiiiinii Moynahan had told him, so he said, that he had been hardly done by, though admitting he had a wife and a boy alive at Bundaberg. He generally put the blame for his troubles on women. And he told McKernon that he figured going on an ocean boat as a cook to cool his heels and get out of the matrimonial and moral mess he was m. That he was hot-tempered and abusive when angry was related to the court by McKernon, who said that he had struck Amy McPherson and called her names.

Nevertheless Moynahan had always led him to believe that he was the injured one m his affairs with women, some of the New Zealand chapters of which were known to witness.

"A know-all, argumentative, abrupt of manner, poor control of temper, about 42 years of age." That was the comprehensive sum-ming-u.p of Moynahan made by McKernon, who went on to relate that Amy McPherson clung to her betrayer, who had her m such a mental condition that she feared to do anything contrary to his wishes. To McKernon she seemed a good woman. At Cairns she went out working for 14 shillings a day and Moynahan did some baking. They left together for .Tully, onetime assemblage of sly-grog shanties, but now a rapidly-growing township of some dimensions, when the caneharvesting season opened. Moynahan got a job at Murphy's farm trucking out cane, and, on his arrangement, the woman did cooking,

and at one time cooked for seven men,

John Murphy, owner of the farm, gave evidence that the couple had been happy, but here and there the thread of jealousy is woven into the warp and woof of romance. A Mrs. Hinkler came to visit Moynahan, and Amy McPherson apparently resented it then — though m court she publicly withdrew the suggestion that anything that Mrs. Hinkler had done had led up to the tragedy. When Amy mentioned the matter to Denis then, he told her he was going to leave her and go to Darwin, and suggested that she had better get a job at the ho'.oi. ( Consequently the transfer to Tully brought them no more happiness than they had when quarrelling at Cairns. Differences grew. An appeal by the woman for money to go back to New Zealand and her release from the man who seemed to have her under his spell met with no response. According to the statement she gave to the police after they had found Moynahan shot, he had threatened her with a gun and struck her. She grew afraid that he was going to harm her. In the statement which the police claim she made, there is this account of the horror. "When I saw him stoop down as though to get something to hit me, I picked up the gun from the table, where he left it, and fired, striking him m the back. He fell forward on the bed."

Her statement went on to say that she attended him and called for assistance. Moynahan had grabbed her by the throat m the cart coming and going- to Tully, and when the fatal shot was fired he said: "You have shot me darling!" The gun was kept over the door. Moynahan h a d taken it down that morning: and loaded it, leaving it on the table m the adjoining bedroom, apparently intending to use it to shoot turkeys. On the other hand, the witness, Murphy, declared that the gun was kept unloaded and that there was no ammunition that he knew of.

To the woman was attributed the statement that she stood at the door and fired, but theory leads to the idea that the shooting was done at close range. The room is about 10 feet across, with the bed on which- Moynahan was found lying, close to the wall. According to the medical evidence, the man, after receiving the shot, would not live many seconds. It made a large hole under his shoulder, fractured several ribs, smashed his lung, and many shot pellets were extracted from his body. There were no signs of any struggle, but there was blood on the blanket, on Moynahan's clothes and m a pool on the floor near the bed. It was also revealed during the proceedings that, while Moynahan Had declined to assist her back to New Zealand, he had enough spare cash to have done so, had he cared to. This and other aspects have been largely responsible for the wave of sympathy for the woman, who must face her trial on a charge of murder m the near future.