A MURDER TWELVE OR FOURTEEN YEARS AGO.

Tuapeka Times, Volume I, Issue 34, 3 October 1868, Page 6

A MURDER TWELVE OR FOURTEEN YEARS AGO.

(From the " Wagga Wagga Express.")

James Scully was, on Tuesday last, brought up at the Police Court, on the charge of murdering Robert Buzzacotte, at Cuddcll Creek, in the year 1856. The prisoner had been brought up on two previous occasions, and had been remanded, as all the witnesses against him had to be brought from Yass and Burrows. It appears that some time in the year 1856, or in 1854, as one of the witnesses deposed, some five or more men, amongst whom were Scully (tho prisoner) and Buezacotfce (the deceased), were drinking in a hut at Cuddell. All present were i more or less drunk, and some words passing between the prisoner and the deceased, the former took up a bottle full of spirits, and standing up, struck the deceased, who was sitting on a stool, over the head with it. Tho j -bottle broke, leaviug the jagged neck in the prisoner's hand, and with this he made another blow, again striking the deceased on the head. The occurrence did not seem to attract any very I ,£reat amount of notice amongst tho remainder of the party ; and, although the deceased bled a good deal, he would not let the wife of ono of the men, who was in an adjoining room when the blows were struck, nor one of his own companions, wash the wound, and the whole 'party soon after retired to bed, leaving only one man lying drunk on the floor in the hut with the deceased. In the morning the latter was found leaning against a bunk dead. A report was sent to the head station, and the superintendent came down, and seeing no blood about, and no wound on the head of the deceased, or in fact any traces of foul play, con- ! eluded he died of suffocation ; and without further ado the body was buried near a spot where there were i several other gravoa. Ono of the witnesses states positively that he can the exact site of the grave ; others affirm that they could not. Some depose that tlie body was enclosed in a hard-wood coffin, while others state pdsitively the coffin was made of pine. , The prisoner has been again remanded for further evidence, ong of tho witnesses against him, and who was present when the blows were struck, being a con^neo in Yass Q-aol. A writ of habeas corpus will be iasued for t!i3 production of this man, and the grave of Buzzacotte will, we presume, be identified if possible, and a careful search bo then instituted to discover if upon the skull of the deceased- any traces of a fracture or cut are discernible. But so many years have elapsed since the "burial of the body that we suspect that this will prove to be a task that will be attended with considerable difficulty. Between the time of the discovery of the dead body of the deceased and the arrival of the superintendent from the head station, a sufficient length of time elapsed to allow of the removal of all traces of blood from the body, and from the floor, on both of which, according to the evidence of the other witnesses, a good deal had been previously visible ; and as it appears that the superintendent did not examine the body very closely, tho absence of any suspicions on his part as to the cause of death is easily accounted for. An attentive examination of the iacts of the case as far as they have yet been disclosed points to tho conclusion that, in tho height of a drunken spree, the deceased received a severe wound on the head with a bottle, and that the orgies f»oon after coming to an end,

the parties to it dispersed and left tlic deceased, drunk, also himself, to bleed to death, without ever believing- that ho had been seriously injured. A s the infliction pf the blows by the bottle was witnessed by noveral persons, three or four of whom are still living, and wore present at tho burial of the deceased, and must havo known LLe cause of his death, it is something wonderful that until very lately no suspicion of the committal of a murder has ever been breathed to tlic authorities, and if after the lapse of twelve years the charge is still brought home to the accused, the case will long rank as one of the most extraordinary in the whole annals of crime.