THE OAMARU MURDER CASE.
[By Telegraph.]
O AMARU, July 10. The Coroner’s inquest touching the death of Sarah Adams was commenced to-day at Peebles. Inspector Weldon conducted the, enquiry, and Mr O’Meagher Watched the proceedings on behalf of Alexander Beattie.
Dugald Allen, the first witness, said he had never heard of any quarrel between Beattie and the .woman until the one that, occurred about Barney Carrol. Beattie left a bag of men’s clothing here,‘ and Mrs Beattie called and took it away. About a week after, Beattie called again and left a small bottle of solder and a razor, and said Mrs Beattie had been cutting fowls’ necks with the razor, which was a favorite of his, he having brought it from Home. He asked him to clean it. The razor was stained with blood. He had had the razor about three weeks rolled up in paper. He put it in a desk. He afterwards gave it to the constable in the presence of Dr DeLautour. It was exactly in the same condition as when he received it. Beattie was at the hotel on Sunday week, or a fortnight after the row with Barney Carrol, and stopped that night. He saw him before he went to bed, and saw him again about one o’clock. He could not fix upon the date when Beattie was at the hotel. Witness had first heard of Mrs Beattie’s being missing a month ago. He could not say positively whether it was before or after he heard Mrs Beattie was missing, but he thought it was after he heard about it. He gave up the razor because either the constable or Dr DeLautour asked for it. The idea of-giving it up to the police before that did not strike him. Both Carroll and Beattie stopped at the hotel the Saturday night after the row took place. Carroll left on Sunday, he believed. Beattie remained all Sunday, but he could not say that he stopped at the hotel that night. The witness was cross-examined at some length. John Warwood said that on a Friday about a fortnight after the row took place between Beattie and Carroll he was told that Mrs Beattie was missing. On Sunday, the 2nd inst., he discovered her body about nine o’clock in the morning. In going down the bank to cross the creek he saw a pair of boots sticking up in the creek,- and went down to examine them. He then saw a anal! portion of a woman’s skirt, and a portion of an arm and a hand. Having madelsure that there was a body there, he left. All fne body except a a part of an arm and hand, and portions of the boots was covered by gravel. The body was not covered by water. Water was running round the body except at the head. He saw a place where there was a fall of gravel below the body. Above the body, in the stream, the gravel was intermixed with grass. He gave information to the police, and assisted the constable to remove the body.' He used a shovel to cut a water way round the body to remove the shingle. Beattie had been at his house five or six times after the row and .before the body was found, and in reply to a question by witness, said he did not know where his wife was.
In cross-examination, witness said he could not say whether or not the body had been buried by hand, but was inclined to the belief that the gravel had been washed oyer it. Thera was a small waterfall at the head of the body, and this had caused the hole. He did not see a spade of shovel lying about. There might have been a hole there large enough for a person to drown before the gravel was placed. . William Henry Scott, , surveyor, deposed to making a plan of the spot where the body of the woman was found. He had examined the place where the gravel had fallen, an 4 was of opinion that it might have been removed arti: ficihlly,"with a shovel" or a spade, and that it ha 4 not been under a natural landslip. His reason for thinking this was that if it had been undermined the bank would have fallen down in a lump, and that had not happened. It might have been washed down, by a heavy flood of water, but he did not think this had happened, as the ground round was equally steep, and this was held by herbage. There would have been furrows, of which there ,was no sign. A third way was that springs might have been formed behind it, which the ground held down, but the water would not have been oozing out. The outline generally at the upper edge looked as if a shovel or spade had been used, but he could not find any actual trace of this. Another reason for believing that it was done artificially was that there were footprints in the position in which they would be left by a person using a spade. They were not.fresh footmarks as moss was beginning to grow on them. If any gravel was placed near the body it would be washed off by a flood, probably leaving a deposit in the north side, but scouring it out where the body was. He could not say whether the gravel had been artificially placed on the body or not. His conclusion was that the gravel or a portion of it had been taken from the bank. A fresh would have tended to uncover rather than cover the body, especially towards where the head was lying.
Dr DeLautour —The bruises could not have been on the body a fortnight before death. They must have been inflicted within a short time of death. I tested the iron bar chemically with Dr Day’s test, which gave the reaction of blood, and microscopically found that there were one or two corpuscles similar to the blood of mammals. The spots on the carving knife gave the same results as the iron bar. The blood on the razor gave the blqpd test chemically, and on microscopical examination I found mammal’s blood, some striped muscular fibre and red woollen fibre. The blood from the handle of the razor gave the chemical test and also gave the absorption bands faintly in the spectrum analysis. The position of these bands corresponded exactly with, those in my own blood. The blood on the chips from the floor of the hut gave the signs of mammal’s blood. I also tested a piece from the inside of a largo frieze ulster coat which was found in the hut. Some stains on this appeared to have been washed out, but gave the signs of mammal’s blood as also dtd a sheet found.
By the jury—l examined some fowls blood on a razor after some hours' exposure, which gave signs of blood by the chemical test and by the spectrum analysis, but microscopically it showed flic fowl’s blood quite distinct from; the blood on the other razor. I examined the hair found on the handkerchief. It resembled human hair. I am not prepared to swear it was so. I compared it with hairs cut from deceased’s head, and found them very similar. I examined some blood on a pair of moleskin trousers, found by Constable Livingstone, which gave all the reactions characteristic of mammal’s blood, but very faintly, under the
spectroscope. The spots on the trousers were all below the knee. There are still twenty-five witnesses to be examined. Peebles is fourteen i miles from Oamaru.
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South Canterbury Times, Issue 2899, 11 July 1882, Page 2
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1,280THE OAMARU MURDER CASE. South Canterbury Times, Issue 2899, 11 July 1882, Page 2
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