CHARGE OF MURDER IN WANGANUI.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 931, 24 February 1872, Page 3

CHARGE OF MURDER IN WANGANUI.

. Daniel McCoy, a respectable farmer living near the No 2 line of road, has been apprehended on the charge of wilful murder. On Thursday, the 20th of December, a man named Francis Daddy was found lying in a shed in an insensible state, and while beingremovedto thehouse died. A jury was summoned, and the coroner held an inquest. Dr Earle made a post mortem examination, when he found a bruise above the left temple. The doctor's evidence continued, " After removing the skull, I found between it and the covering of the brain a very large clot of blood, caused by a ruptured blood-vessel pressing on the brain situated immediately under the bruise; I consider the immediate cause of death arose from the clot caused by the rupture of a blood-ves-sel." The doctor adding that " from continual drink, the blood-vessels became more liable to be ruptured, and the brain would be less able to bear compression." How the bruise was caused was explained by McCoy in the most straight forward and unreserved manner. The deceased had been drinking freely, and demanded from McCoy more money to procure drink. He grew very violent while he was in the harness-room. McCoy stated in his evidence what followed : " He had a knife in his hand and said he would stick me with it • I struck him in self-defence ; he was coming towards me, when I hit him oh the head ; I think on the left side above the eye; he dropped the knife, and fell towards me, and I dragged • him out of the harness-room; when he fell his head struck against some timber ; he afterwards left to go to Old's, to get an axe to chop the wheels of my dray to pieces; no one was present at the time ; the blow did not make him insensible." After McCoy's own evidence, and the doctor's, how possibly could the jury have returned such a verdict as the following : " That the said Francis Daddy, on the 27th of Dec. 1871, met his death by a bruise over the left temple, but how or by what means the said bruise was caused we have not sufficient evidence to show." McCoy was committed for trial.