Gripps Confesses

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 2, 21 May 1914, Page 5

Gripps Confesses

TO THE GERALDINU MURDER. A PECULIAR EXPLANATION. By Telegraph—Press Association. Timaru, Last Night. Harry Gripps, single, 27 years of age, charged at the Magistrate's Court at deraldine to-day with the wilful murder on April 28 of Adam Stevenson, aged 60, a fellow-worker on an out-farm, where they were living together in a wheeled liuit, was committed for trial. The police luid a prima facie case that the iimtsed struck the deceased five blows on the head with a gorse knife just outehte the galley, drew si sack over the old man's head, placed the body in a dray, carted it »t night for a mile and a-half, and placed it in some gorse in the Orari riverbed, where it was found on April 30. A neighbor visited the camp after (lark, and saw tile horse and dray close to the galley and something lying on the ground behind the dray, but he J thought it was firewood. A light was j coming from the galley, (not towards i the dray) and Cripps shut the' galley | door. The police ease included evidence that the two men did not get on well together, the elder man complaining that Cripps was inefficient, and Crippa of Adam growling ait him. Tho case was 'completed by tihe confession of Cripps to Detective Falicy on the evening of his arrest as follows: "I am sorry I didn't tell yon on Tuesday. I was kneeling down, chopping sticks, when Adam hit me with a crowbar over the shoulder. I hit liiim with a st,ick on the head. I washed his face. I was going to take him down to you fellows, but I got frightened and carted him to the riverbed." Constable O'Cradly, who found tlhe body, said the face was clean when found. ' A medical witness said the accused 1 had a slight bruise on his shoulder on | the evening of the 30th, but it was too | slight to have been caused by a crow- j bar.