A MASTERTON MURDER.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10131, 3 December 1910, Page 5

A MASTERTON MURDER.

SOMERVILLE IIANGS HIMSELF. DETAILh OF THE TRAGEDY. A Wellington telegram states that Andrew John Somerville, an inmate of the Porrua Mental Hospital, committed suicide by hanging in a hayloft on Thursday evening. Deceased, who r was about sixty years of age, had been transferred from" the Na-pier-Gaol in 1901 after Being,acquitted <h a cjharge of wi if lit-murder. He had no relatives in New Zealand, and was quiet" and industrious. ceased had appealed to the Executive for his liberty, and frequently complained that this was not granted to him. verdict was returned of suicide while oi unsound mind, no blame being attachabe to anyone. ( j The details of the crime on account of which Somen ille was indicted on a charge of murder are still fresh in the memory of old Masterton residents. A wages dispute was being heard in the Magistrate s Court in 1895, between Somerville and an East Coast settler named Herbert. During the dinner adiournment Somerville purchased a revolver, and afterwards went to the Club Hotel to see Herbert. $ "Are you going to pay me?" he asked. There was no response. "Take that, you !" cried Somerville. aa he flourished the weapon and fired direct at Herbert. "And that! and that!" as he..fired again. Two of the bullets found their mark, and Herbert ran across the street and fell . bleeding on the footpath near the corner of Perry street. Somerville followed him, as if to see that his was ■complete, when Constables Collerton and Nestor, who were in town for a meeting of the Licensing Bench, and were standing in the street near the Pof't Office at the time of the tragedy, rushed to the scene and seized the murdeier, with the partly-loaded weapon still in his hand, and threw him before he could apparently realise that they were upon him. Poor Herbert by this time was dead, and Somerville, who was a man of big stature, was marched handcuffed to the police station. In his preliminary trial he was defended by Mr C. A. Pownall, and his demeanour in Court was that of a, martyr rather than a homicide. At his trial in Wellington, the jury, to the surprise of most people, returned a verdict of insanity, and the prisoner, who belonged tD the United States of America, was committed to the Gaol Asylum during the pleasure of the Crown.