A CHILD TRIED FOR CHILDMURDER.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2562, 7 June 1881, Page 3

A CHILD TRIED FOR CHILDMURDER.

The Chicago Tribune ” says : “ One of the most extraordinary murder trials on record was tried at Machius, Me., to-day. The prisoner was only nine years old. The victim was seven. To convict this child, who has scarcely graduated from petticoats, and who cannot possibly have any comprehension of the awful crime laid at his door or the gniit and pena’ty attaching to it, the Com t has sat for three clays and gone through all the routine of trial to which adult criminals are subjected. Warren Longmore, the prisoner, was at Freeman Wright’s home on October 8 Inst, after school, when a boy, attracted by the noise of the discharge of a gun, proceeded to the premises, and discovered Longmore digging a hole with a spade in a manure heap at the back of the barn, with the prostrate body of Wright still breathing, with a track of blood leading from the door of Hiq, house to tbe spot. The wounded boy bad been shot in the head and neck, two of the shots penetrating the brain, and lie lived but a short time. Longmore told very conflicting stories regarding the affair, claiming that he took the gun to shoot a cat, while Wright was to stand by and keep her from getting away, and that somehow the gun went off, with the result noted. . Realising somewhat the terrible result of the shooting, he determined to hide the body of his late comrade, and before life was extinct, dragged it from the house across the yard and behind the barn, where he was surprised digging a grave. A medical examination of Wright’s body developed the most singular part of this phenomenal affair, for, besides the shot wounds, Wright’s skull was fractured in two places over each temple. It is charged that Longmore, ofter dragging the body to the barn, discovered that Wright was not dead, and deliberately struck him with the spade to complete the horrible deed. Longmore was not known as a vicious lad, and it was claimed that the shooting was accidental, and his subsequent work the result of the crazed condition which the realisation of his awful deed threw him into. Wrght’s parents, however maintain that it was a case of premedlated murder, and that their little boy was coaxed over there by Longmore for the purpose of killing him. There Avas a lot of conflicting testimony, and the trial, which is here regarded as an insult to the intelligence and the humanity of the community, and a travesty upon justice, resulted in a verdict of manslaughter a result mainly due to the judge’s charge to the jury.”