MURDER OF A CHILD.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 December 1917, Page 8

MURDER OF A CHILD.

a brutal cimrrc. By Telegraph.— Press Association. Christehurch, Dee. 8. A pathetic tragedy was disclosed tlw; morning by the discovery at Addingtou of the body of a three-year-old boy who had been killed by his head being smashed. The child's name was David .Lewis Carriek, and he was being boarded cut from a receiving home. Christehurch, Later. The three-year-old child Carriek, who was found mur<! /("[.this morning, was the central njrirc in a sensational incident in February, Kilo, when a resident of River lioud, Dallington, found the child (then an infant three weeks old) in the hollow of a willow tree. Subsequently the child's mother, a finale woman named Winifred Carriek, received two years' imprisonment for abandoning the child. The infant was committed to the (lOvermiv.'nt. receiving home, whence It was licensed out to Richard Thomas Burns. laborer, of Clifton Street, Addingtou. Burns found the child's body this morning about rt o'clock in the garden with its head smashed in. evidently by a spade, it is not clear how the child got into the garden, or whether, in fact, the crime was committed actually at the spot where the body was found. Wlieti llurns found the body, the child had evidently been dead for some time, though t.h" body was not apparerllv cold. If the crime was committed in the yard it seems certain there could nave been little or no outcry on the part of the hapless little victim, and it .seems very probable also that it must havye .been committed prior to ."> a.m. Next door there were people sleeping in a lent in their yard, and they heard noihitry io disturb them up to about •'i .Mil., v.'hen they rose. An inquest on the child was opened this afternoon. ]lr. r-'cott stated the cav,=e of death was lacerat ion of the brain, due to fracture of the skull, ]ri the post mortem lie found woun.ds and bruises on the tips of the middle linger and forefinger of the left. hand, as if the child had put up its hand in order to protect itr,elf. There was a lame bruise on the forehead. .All the organs we're health v. A screw wrench and spade were found near the body. The Coroner: The fracture could have bren done hv a spade? Witness: Yes It. is consistent with a wound caused by a blow with a spade. IV. Scott added that 1'- head iiad been forced into the soft ground which had been dug up. When the body was raised tin; head had formed a distinct cup in the ground. It gave the impression that the child struck first and then was forced into the ground. The inquest was adjourned. C'hrNtehuivh, Last, Night. Last, night. Detective (iibson arrested, on a charge of murder. Winifred Carriek, mother of the child Donald Lewis Carriek, who was found murdered at Addingtou yesterday morning. ■ °