THE WAIKIVI TKAGEDY.

Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 253, 5 December 1872, Page 6

THE WAIKIVI TKAGEDY.

[ The trial of Caroline Witting for the murder of her three youngest children at Waikivi, on Oct. 19, took place at Invercargill before Mr Justice Chapman, on the insfc. The prisoner being undefended, the task of watching the case on her behalf was assigned by his Honor to Mr Justice Wade. The witnesses examined for the prosecution were Anne Witting, prisoner's eldest daughter; Augusta Witting, another of her daughters ; Albert Witting, her eldest son; John Sinclair, the wood splitter, who found the bodies of the murdered children ; Sub-Inspector Fox ; and Samuel Morton, who found the prisoner after she sought refuge in the bush. Morton stated in his evidence that " she then looked wild, like a wild animal, with a glare in her eyes. Her superior faculties appeared to be suspended. She appeared as if she had lost her reason. She always broke the conversation, and turned it to something else. She said she would get into trouble with her husband for staying away so long; that he would beat her. Thought she was mad, and treated her somewhat like a lunatic, speak* ing in a noothing manner." Mr Wade, in addressing the Court, said the actual defence — which was meant by pleading not guilty — was not that the prisoner had not committed the act with which she was charged, but that at the time she was not in a state of mind to be held accountable for what she was doing. The issue was not whether the prisoner was insane at the present time, but whether the death of the children was the act of the prisoner, and whether, if satisfied of that, the jury held that the prisoner, at the time of the act, was of sound mind, and responsible for what she was doing.

Four witnesses were called for the defence. Dr G rigor attended the prisoner at her con tineaient t .-. elve months before, when she was very much depressed, dull and desponding, but he Buspccted nothing wrong with her intellect. Mrs flarrop, matron at the Invercargill hospital, said when prisoner was there she complained of her head, and general low spiritedness. She said more than once that " her head would bring her to something that she was not aware of." A Mr Thomas Perkins said he and his wife often called on the prisoner at the time oi her confinement, that she evidently had great trouble on her mind just then, and that he came to the conclusion that her mind was not properly balanced. In the hospital afterwards, he observed the same tfightiness and inability to connect two ideas.

The Judge, in a most elaborate and lucid manner, summarised the evidence as to the facts of the occurrence, and also a& to the defence, on the ground of the alleged insanity ef the prisoner. The acts attributed to the prisoner he held had been conclusively proved. The law, he explained, required that to justify a verdict of acquital on the ground of insanity, it should be shown to the satisfaction of the jury that the prisoner was, at the time of the act, either in such a state of mind as to be incapable of understanding the nature of the act itself or of knowing whether it was right or wrong. If the jury were satisfied that sufficient evidence had been adduced to prove that the prisoner's state of mind at the time justified either of these suppositions, it was their duty to return a verdict of acquital, on the ground of insanity. If not. there was no middle course. The crime attributed to the prisoner could not be designated as other than wilful murder.

Tbe jury retired to consider their verdict. After the lapse of an hour and a half, the jury returned to Court. Great interest was manifested in tLe result, and before the Judge took his seat on the bench, every available portion'of thebuildingwas crowded; and perfect silence prevailed throughout the numerous audience when the foreman, alter the usual formalities had been gone through, returned a verdict of "Guilty. ' The prisoner (who appeared for the first time to realise her position), exhibited manifestations of great nervousness, and in reply to the usual question, said that she remembered going oit in the afternoon with the children, but that after that she remembered nothing more. His Honor, who seemed much affected, then addressed the prisoner, in scarcely articulate tones, as follows : — Caroline Witting, the jury have found you guilty of the murder of your three youngest children. Concurring as 1 do in the verdict, I have to say that the question was raised as to whether you were in a seund state of mind at the time you committed the act. The jury have negatived that defence, and, I think, properly. They could hardly have come to the conclusion, that you were so deranged as not to know what you were doing ; or knowing it, not to know that it was wrong. I have to pass upon you the sentence of the law, which is that you be taken to the place from whence you came, and thence to the place of execution, and there be hanged by the neck until you be dead, and that your body be buried within the precincts of the gaol. May the Lord have mercy on your soul !

The prisoner was removed in a hysterical condition.

The Southland Tbnez of the 23n«l instant says a memorial of the inhabitants of Invercargill and the vicinity, for the commutation of the sentence of death passed upon Caroline Witting for tbe murder of her three children, is being prepared by Mr Wade.