Wilful Murder.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 61, 3 July 1914, Page 5

Wilful Murder.

SAD CASE OF HOMICIDE. WEST AUSTRALIAN TRAGEDY. [By Electric Telegraph—Copyright [United Phku Association.] (Received 9.35 a.in.) Perth, July 3. A verdict of wilful murder was returned against Frederick Smith.

A 1 Albany on Monday, 22nd nit., Frederick James Smith (51) was charged with murdering his son, Frederick, aged, 20, by shooting him in the stomach with a shotgun. Smith was a settlor at Tennessee, on the Denmark line, and it is alleged that land ownership disputes had arisen between him and his son. The accused man stated that both were discussing the arrangements for the control of their respective properties, when the son lost his temper and threatened him. The father seized a gun and pointed it at his son, who rushed his father. The.latter fired, intending to aim at his son’s legs, hut the charge entered the lad’s body, and he rolled over, dead. The father adds that he was only prevented from using the second charge in his own destruction by the thought that the native dogs would get both bodies.