King's Crime.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 30, 27 May 1914, Page 5

King's Crime.

THE SURRY-HILLS MURDER HUSBAND’S WILFUL ACT. .1 [By Electric Telegraph—Copyright] lUnited Press Association.] Sydney, May 26. A verdict of wilful murder was returned against William King, charged with the murder of his wife. Xixon-lane, off Xixon-street, Surryhills, was the scene of a murder on Friday, loth iust. A married woman, Margaret Jane King, a native of Xew Zealand, had her throat cut, and died within a few minutes of the arrival of the ambulance.

Mrs King, in company with her husband, rented a couple of rooms up to a few weeks before. Family troubles brought about separation, and the husband appeared before the Court on a warrant for maintenance. On Friday night he called on his wife. The two were overheard having words. After a few minutes King walked away.' A little later Mrs King came downstairs with her young daughter, Xellie, and told a neighbour that she was going to visit a friend. The next that was known was the screaming of the little girl, who rushed back into the house, crying that someone was trying to kill her mother. The occupants of the place being all women, were too terrified to go and see what was the matter, but one of them ran into the street and screamed for the police.

Constable Hewitt and Plain-clothes-coustable Montague was sitting in the Bourke-street police station when a hoy ran in and said that a policeman was wanted. Following the boy’s directions, they came upon Mrs King with her throat cut, lying in the gutter in the lane. A minute or two afterwards the Civil Ambulance arrived, and the unfortunate woman was hurried to’ the hospital; but she died on the way. No trace of the murderer could be found. An unfortunate aspect of the tragedy is that Mrs King was the mother of six children; the eldest is 12 years old. Two of them are away in the country, one is with the father and the other three have been with the mother for some time. In the same house, in a bedroom upstairs, lay the widowed mother of the murdered woman, deaf, blind, and paralysed, waiting for her daughter to return. King was arrested after a long chase.

When the attack was made the murderer exclaimed, “I’ve long promised you this, and now I’ve given it to vou!”