MURDER CHARGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 October 1943, Page 3

MURDER CHARGE

ACCUSED WOMAN ACQUITTED DEATH OF NEWLY-BORN CHILD (By Telegraph—Press Association.) PALMERSTON N., October 19. In the Supreme Court, Emily Ivy Elston, aged 27, a married .woman, was charged with murdering her newlyborn- male child about' September 3. She pleaded not guilty and. was acquitted by the jury. ’ The Cfown Prosecutor, Mr Cooper, said the evidence would show that the accused, who was the mother of five other children, murdered her newlyborn infant by placing it in a suitcase and closing this down, knowing that the child would die oT suffocation. Accused was deserted by her husband and later associated with a soldier, as the result of which she became pregnant. She had admitted to a doctor and a detective that the child was alive when she put it in a sheet and blanket, and that she knew when she put it in the suitcase that it would not live. Medical evidence was that the child had breathed and died of asphyxia but it was possible, that it was dead before being put in the suitcase. Mr Justice Blair, speaking to the jury, said: “I think I might add that I agree with your verdict.” *