HENLEY MURDER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 June 1938, Page 8

HENLEY MURDER

CHARGE AGAINST PARKS. HEARING OPENED IN POLICE COURT. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) DUNEDIN, This Day. In the Police Court this morning, before Mr J. R. Bartholomew, S.M., Eric Sandaggar Parks was charged with the murder of Frances Amelia Lee at Henley on April 14. The inquest was taken concurrently. Mr F. B. Adams, the Crown Prosecutor, represented the police and Mi- C. J. L. White and Mr J. B. Thomson the accused.

Dr Wylie stated that he was telephoned for at 7 o’clock on the morning of April 15. Proceeding to Henley with the police, he found, in a bedroom, the body of a woman, aged about 50. She was lying on her back with her face covered by a pillow. There was a head wound from which brain substance protruded. The bed was soaked with blood. There was no evidence of a struggle. The injury suggested that deceased had been struck by a heavy instrument with a flat surface, which might have been the sledgehammer produced. Death was caused by a compound skull fracture, with severe laceration and haemorrhage. Deaths would be instantaneous and it appeared that the blow was struck while deceased slept. The case is proceeding.

Dr. Eileen Chapman, Assistant Pathologist at the Medical School, stated that on the body on the following morning, she found three further skull wounds. Witness thought deceased had lived some minutes after the blow had been struck. Eric Frederick D’Ath, Professor of Pathology, said he had received several articles, including a sledge-ham-mer. from the police. The hammer bore stains of human blood. There were a few grey hairs attached to the hammer, these coresponding with the hairs from deceased's head. Witness examined the skull and believed that only one blow had been struck.