WARKWORTH TRAGEDY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 93, 23 August 1913, Page 7

WARKWORTH TRAGEDY.

ACCUSED COMMITTED TO A MEXTAL HOSPITAL. [Per PnKsa Association.] Auckland. August 20. Matters in connection with the r< cent tragedy at Warkworth were it. vestigated at tlie Supreme Court lo !day, when Mary Winchester Hall, ; jmarried woman, 31 years of age, w:>charged with the murder of h< daughter, Mary Elizabeth Hall, age ;i() years, on June '27. The case \va: I heard before Mr Justice Cooper. j» The Crown Prosecutor described th< case as particularly sad. The accused, he said, was living happily with her .husband. On the day of tin tragedy the mother took her three children into the barn, stood two of them on a box, and the third on another box, with ropes tied round theii necks, and then knocked away the boxes, and the children were left hanging. The girl Isabel had her neck dislocated. The other.two little boys, with their mother's assistance, were rescued from their perilous positions. For the defence, evidence was given by the accused's husband and mother, to show that she had been suffering from depression. The doctors deposed that from subsequent examinations they had no hesitation in declaring the accused to have been insane when the deed was committed. His Honor, in summing up, said the jury would be quite justified in bringing in a verdict of not guilty on the ground of insanity. This the jury did without leaving the box. The accused was then committed to the Auckland Mental Hospital pending instructions from the Minister of Internal Affairs. , The Crown Prosecutor said he would ask leave to withdraw the further charge of attempted murder.