MURDER CHARGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 June 1943, Page 4

MURDER CHARGE

PRELIMINARY HEARING DEATH OF WOMAN TAXI-DRIVER. THE TINWALD SENSATION. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) ASHBURTON, June 29. The preliminary hearing of the case against James Hector McAulay, labourer, aged 19, charged with the murder of Mrs Margaret Wilhelmina Webster, 36, taxi-driver, was commenced before Mr H. Morgan, S.M. Inquest proceedings were taken in conjunction with the hearing by the district coroner. Mr E. C. Bathurst. Fifty-five witnesses have been subpoenaed and the case is expected to last for three days.

John Bainbridge Kearion. police photographer, stated that he found in the rear compartment of a car abandoned on Lagmhor Road the neck of a broken bottle with a crown top attached and unbroken, also the head of a torch, which appeared to be bloodstained, and a lower set of false teeth. In the front seat was the stem of a torch, bloodstained and ihdented.

Witness then described visiting a section in Tinwald, where the burnt remains of a body, with the lowei’ limbs covered by a piece of tin, were smouldering in a pit. A photograph showed a small three-cornered piece of material similar to a dust coat beside the hip. There were signs of a vehicle having travelled to a garage through a gate that showed it had been recently opened. At the Christchurch Hospital witness took a photograph of the body showing a ligature (a man s pocket handkerchief) round the neck. Dr Arthur Bushby Pearson, pathologist at the Christchurch Public Hospital, described the condition of the body.' It was extensively burned and blackened. The ligature round the neck was revealed on the removal of the covering material in the sump hole. A post-mortem examination showed a wound on the scalp, above the prominence of the occipical bone. It was irregular in shape and could have been caused by a bottle which broke when it struck the head, or- by the edge of the top of an electric torch. It was unlikely to have been selfinflicted. By itself the wound, .which appeared to have been made shortly before death, would not have caused death, but it would cause unconsciousness. The wound above the left eye had been affected by fire. It was more likely to have been made by a torch than a bottle, but he was unable to say if it was inflicted before death. It was possible, from the presence of the ligature, that death was due to strangulation. Several other witnesses gave evidence and the court then adjourned till tomorrow.