EAST MELBOURNE MURDER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 126, 18 November 1911, Page 2 (Supplement)

EAST MELBOURNE MURDER.

The. hearing of the charge against Dr. Samuel Peacock of having, about August 10, at East Melbourne, murdered .Mary .Margaret Davics, 27 years of age, was concluded in Melbourne last month.

Accused made a statement Jmt not on oath, as follows:—"I am 72 years of age. I have practised my profession for -fit) years. About the second week in August, a young woman, giving the name of Mrs. Nelson, called at my place and consulted me. 1 advised 'her to enter my hospital for a little while as a patient. This she consented to do, and she came back a day or two after and entered the hospital. On August !) she paid me live guineas for the lirst week in advance, and that was all the money she ever gave me. i'oke, who I then understood was her husband, called and saw her two or three times. At the end of the week I told her that it was the rule of my hospital to pay in advance, and the woman then appeared much disturbed, ami said she was not married, and that the man who had visited her was the cause of her trouble. Hut he appeared to have deserted her, and had not brought her monev. 1 told held not to distress or worry herself, but, slii' might remain in Hie hospital for a. little till she was stronger. She continued to be distressed, and on August 2."> she came downstairs with her dress basket, and said she had decided to leave. She said that it was not her fault that she had not been aide to pay me. and that was all she could do. She then went away.

"I never saw Poke after August 17 until he was brought in by the detective on the night of August 2!). I denied to the detective that the girl had been at my hospital, because she came to me as a married woman, and 1 consider that, professionally. T was bound to preserve' her secret. T now recognise that it would have been better if f had ■thought less of her and more of myself, and frankly told the detective all I know. 1 never told Poke that before she died she had a fit of screaming, nor that T had disposed secretly of the'bodv, and that I had burnt the clothes. The instruments found in my house had been in my possession for 13 years, I did not burn any clothes, and know nothing of the whereabouts of Marv Uavies after she left my hospital." The jury, after being out four hours, brought, in a verdict of guilty. In passing sentence of death the Chief Justice said the prisoner had, been found guilty of a particularlv dangerous ami heinous oll'ence. lie proposed to slate a ease which might lie possibly regarded as showing something which might avert Ihe consequences of his verdict from him. He though!, however. I hat there was nobody who had contemplated the case for some lime who was not satislied that he was guillv. The prisoner had prostil tiled the great profession lie had practised lo Ihe vile and sordid de- *! met ion of young lives -a very audacious defiance of the law. If j| should appear to (lie Courts hereafter, upon consideration of (he technical aspects of this case, that Ihe verdict should sfaml. he thought flint, flic prisoner would do well not lo look too earnestly for mercy. He did not know what would happen in that direction-it would rest wilh the flovernor and his Ministers; but he I hough 1, that Ihe indignation of the community they represented and expediency due for the protection of the community, and its young girls—and, indeed, not only its young girls, lints its married women—would induce them to take a strong, resolute view of the prisoner's conduct, and of this sentence. His Honor then passed sentence of death.