ATTEMPTED MURDER.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 2994, 19 September 1908, Page 5

ATTEMPTED MURDER.

A UISPiORNE CASE,

ACCUSED SENTENCED TO FIFTEEN YEARS' IMPRISONMENT.

BY TKI,I,I}RAP;r —PRESS ASSOCIATION. GISBORNE, September 18. The charge of attempted murder acainst Walter Symonris, accused of shooting at Mary Agne.-i Peterson, came Leforo the Supreme Court today. For the defe.icj Mr Stock urged that the prisoner had not fired with intent to kill, but acted o:i the impulse of the moment in a fit of jealousy, being muddled with drink. His Honor in summing up said that accused fired the weapon after repeating the request he had been making ior a fortnight—"Marry me or give me back my money." There was nothing to show that the shooting had been done under a controllable impulse. The shots were meant to kill. Then the accused was found on the ground with the revolver in his mouth. A man acting on an uncontrollable impulse would put the revolver into his mouth and blow his brains out. Accused laid himself out on the ground, and waited for some one to come. His subsequent statements were not those of a man acting in a fit'pf frenzy. The jury returned a verdict of guilty with a recommendation to mercy. His Honor said that the crime was one of the most deliberate and coldblooded attempts at murder he had ever had the ill-luck to try. Taking the most favourable view of the jury's recommendation he must put tbe prisoner where Sib would be unable to attempt to murder the girl again for a considerable period. He sentenced prisoner to fifteen years' imprisonment.