CHRISTCHURCH MURDER CASE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10242, 19 May 1911, Page 5

CHRISTCHURCH MURDER CASE.

ACCUSED ON TRIAL. THE CROWN'S THEORY. (By Telegraph-~Press Association.) CHRISTOHUROH, Last Night. Harry Alexander Jack and Walter Richard Sadler appeared at tine Supreme Court this morning, to answer a charge that on the night of . 7tb February, they murdered Ethel May Bradley, whose body .was discovered in a right-of-way oft' Cashel Street 'n the city, the following morning. On the application of Mr Raymond, who appeared for Jack, the charges against the accused were taken separately. Sadler pleaded not guilty.

Mr T. W. Stringer, K.C., prosecuted, and Mr T. G. Russell appeared for accused.

Mr Stringer, in opening for the Crown, said the facts were simple. Difficulties did not arise until they tried to draw conclusions. Accused Jack and Ethel Bradley were lover*. Jack was assistant to Sadler, who kept a hairdresser's shop, and Smiley knew Sadler. Deceased was stuv about eight o'clock on 7th February by her cousin in Cashel Street, and again at 8.15 or 8.30 she, or a won.sn like her, was seen standing rear'the Zetland Hotel, which is close to Sadler's shop. About that ri no Jack met this woman. About 9 o'clock Jack and Bradiey passed tb? Zetjand Hotel and entered Sadler's shop Bradley was not again -rc-n aiive, and what happened in the shop could probably be ascertained only from statements, made by the. accused. A post mortem examination showed that the death of the woman was due to prussic acid, and .she was pregnant. Mr Stringer devoted some attention to the conflicting statements made by Jack and Sadler at the inquest prior to the sworn statement in which Sadler professed to give a full account of the woman's death. Sadler had sworn Jack and Bradley entered the shop at 9.30 on 7th February, and the -woman had been taken ill and died there. Mr Stringer went at length into possible theories. The defence, he said, would argue that the woman knew she was pregnane and committed suicide, but the closest search failed to reveal how she acquired the poison. The Crown did not contend that Sadler and Jack .set out to murder Bradley. The theory he advanced was that the men gave the woman the poison to procurelahortion, not knowing what its nature was, and' that death resulted; The evidence in the main was the same as that given at the inquest and in the lower Court. The only fresh witness this morning was Lionel Norman Brown, a grocer, of Eltham, who said he stayed' in the Zetland Hotel. He knew Jaok, and saw him at 8.45 on 7th February enter Sadiler'is shop with a woman, who was walking in an ordinary manner. Subsequently he had drinks with Jack, who left him shortly before ten. The case for the Crown was concluded, when the Court ' adjourned until to-morrow.