Murder or Suicide?

In 1862, Julius Vogel was Waikouaiti’s elected representative on the Otago Provincial Council.  Ten years later the ambitious Vogel had been appointed to the position of colonial treasurer and in this capacity he instigated New Zealand’s grandest ever public works scheme.  Vogel – the Rob Muldoon of the nineteenth century, borrowed enormous sums of money from Britain in order to boost migration and build infrastructure.  He promised to build a thousand miles of railways in order to open up inaccessible land (much of it confiscated during the Maori wars) and vowed that this target would be met within nine years.

Thousands of men were needed to help construct Vogel’s railways; however, in 1870 a work force of that size simply didn’t exist.  The English firm contracted to build the rail network, were obliged to recruit more than two thousand men to meet this labour shortage.  These strong but mostly unskilled  ‘navvies’ were given free passage to New Zealand and promised two years steady work. On arrival, these men soon discovered that the salaries they had been offered in England were not as generous as they had first supposed – parity with colonial wages and working conditions (an eight hour working day!) was demanded. 

The recruitment scheme was something of a disaster, immigrant railway workers arrived faster than engineers could organise work for them, and the experienced agricultural workers among them soon found employment elsewhere.  Having paid nothing towards their passage, these men found they had little to lose by breaking their contracts; the majority simply walked away avoiding prosecution.  Within a very short period of time another labour shortage loomed. Several recruitment alternatives were considered and dismissed, Maori were considered to be ‘inefficient’ workers, and the importation of Chinese labourers was actively opposed by provincial authorities.  The shortage was eventually alleviated by an influx of German and Scandinavian immigrants and by settlers from the United Kingdom who enjoyed free passage to New Zealand during 1873.                                                                                             

A few years later the government sought to combat the ‘unemployment outcry’ by reserving sections of railway construction for the jobless,  in 1876 an able bodied unemployed man could earn 6s 6d a day on the Waikouaiti

railway works, carrying out “fencing, earthworks and laying the permanent way.” There was no excuse for the fit and healthy men of Otago to remain idle. 

Railroad workers were a diverse group, ethnicity, skills and motivation varied widely, but all workers shared the same difficult working conditions.  Picks, shovels and dynamite were used to break hard ground, and barrows were used to move it.  Injuries and fatalities were not uncommon. In 1878 a young man named James Patterson took up work on the Waikouaiti railway after failing to make his fortune in the goldfields.  “Slung in a boatswain’s chair on the side of a steep precipice near Purakanui station”, Paterson was clearing away loose stones when he fell fifty feet, striking his shoulder then fell fifty feet further, smashing his head on the railway track. He was taken into the guard’s van of the Waikouaiti train “in a dying state” and was dead before the train reached Dunedin. 

Men who faced such risk for a reward of six shillings a day could hardly be blamed for choosing to slip away into bush.  Absenteeism was widespread and individuals regularly absconded from the transient workforce.  The disappearance of a single man from a railway ‘navvy’ camp would have raised no suspicions, the absence would have been attributed to desertion – foul play would never have been suspected.

The Waikouaiti to Palmerston section of the main trunk line was completed in September 1878.  When a skeleton was found in a railway drainage ditch beside the Waikouaiti station in 1890, the railway completion date became important.  Because the ditch had been dug no later than 1878 there was a twelve year period during which a body had been concealed.

The journalist who reported the discovery was eager to present an unbiased account of the find.  The original newspaper headline read “Murder or Suicide?” The article suggested that the death was either a “ghastly murder” or a “determined suicide.” It was not considered unlikely that a truly determined man might have tied himself up in a small sack containing two heavy pieces of iron, and drowned himself in a ditch containing no more than three feet of water. 

Uncommonly hot conditions dried the ditch exposing the remains, two boys aged ten and nine removed the skull and eventually informed their parents of the find.  The skeleton was taken into the possession of Sergeant Conn, of the Palmerston Police who made “careful enquiries but failed to find that anyone in the district had been reported missing since 1878.”  Initial medical investigations ascertained that the bones belonged to an aged man, 5 foot 9 inches in height.

Further forensic examination of the remains was more detailed.  Walter Hislop, a Surgeon from Palmerston examined the skeleton.  During the inquest that was held in Waikouaiti, he reported that the skull was of the “Mongolian type” with a massively wide lower jaw and had teeth that were “stained yellow, as if from Opium smoking.” He remarked that “the head was a large one, on a small body, no more than five feet in height and concluded that the evidence suggested that the bones had belonged to a Chinaman. The coronial jury returned a unanimous verdict, in their opinion there was a very grave suspicion that the unnamed man had met his death through foul play.

The local newspapers presented several theories as to the timing of the murder and identity of the victim. They postulated that the dead man might have been a railway ‘navvy’ whose body was placed in the ditch around the time that the railroad was being built.  Alternatively, it was suggested that the corpse might have been placed in the ditch some years after the railway was completed and that it may have been transported there from a nearby local hotel.  No sightings of a very short Chinaman with a disproportionately large head were ever reported.

Within weeks newspapers reported a ‘satisfactory or possibly ludicrous’ revelation.  An unnamed local man claimed that a ‘gorilla’ from a travelling circus had died when its company were passing through Waikouaiti and that its remains had been hastily placed in a gunny bag and thrown into the convenient ditch.

An article in the North Otago Times reported satisfaction that ‘foul murder’ had not been committed on a human being and ridiculed the solemn coroner’s enquiry.  The credibility of the surgeon who had identified the skull as belonging to a ‘Chinaman’ was also questioned, but in fairness the article also noted that “the skull of a gorilla accords in shape with those of some members of the human family, a fact that gives us reason to have faith in Darwin.” In an final effort to remain impartial the closing sentence of the newspaper article read:

“However, the gorilla story might be a joke.”

Simply not Cricket

European settlers developed a mania for ‘the gentleman’s sport’.  Dunedin boasted sixty cricket clubs, but in this Presbyterian enclave enthusiasm outweighed opportunity; local grounds were scarce,  play was forbidden on Sundays and the season was constrained by poor weather.  Consequently Dunedin teams were often obliged to play ‘away’ and so on March 1^st 1880, Dunedin’s Excelsior Club travelled thirty miles north to engage the Palmerston Club in a ‘friendly’.

The venue was not to the visitors liking.  A local farmer had moved his cattle, a pitch had been mown and cow muck raked towards the boundaries but the ground was still rutted and uneven. 

The local team, who were accustomed to playing on an irregular surface elected to bat first and gained a creditable fifty three runs. Excelsior replied with sixty four, a score that was entirely attributable to boundaries scored from the occasional straight delivery.

During elevenses, the home team trampled corrugations from the pitch while Excelsior strategized. When the home team once again resumed batting, Excelsior established an attacking field; their men gathered close enough to ridicule the batsman while the bowlers threw bouncers and deliberately rushed the delivery of overs.  The Excelsior scorekeeper maintained a constant tirade of encouragement from the sidelines and the unnerved home team were soon all out for thirty four.

Each ball of the final innings was deliberately directed towards the boundaries and by the time Excelsior were dismissed for seventy seven, the Palmerston fielders were thoroughly soiled with cow-muck. Defeated but not dispirited, the home team proceeded to congratulate their opponents!  Filthy hands were enthusiastically offered and the Excelsior players pristine backs were heartily slapped and smeared.

The scorekeeper remonstrated, so Palmerston’s captain tossed him a ball – it would have been better if he had dropped this catch – the missile had not been fashioned from leather.

Big Mere

My father was a giant foreigner, an American Pequot Indian who escaped his homeland by exploiting his strength and stature. Whaling fleets carried him southward to Huriawa, in the days when tohorā still visited these waters.  My mother claimed to have been drawn to his warrior spirit, while her dark hair, eyes and complexion reminded him of the women in his tribe.     At the insistence of the resident missionary they were married and the evidence of their sins – their baby girl, was baptised.  I was christened Mere, a name that was biblical enough to appease the Reverend Watkins and appropriately descriptive of my shared warrior heritage.

My father gifted me his prominent cheekbones, aquiline nose and his stature, features of which I was very proud.  In those days life was hard, to travel we walked and every scrap of food had to be foraged by hand.  Strong arms and legs and a sturdy back were enviable attributes in a time when horses and oxen were unimaginable prizes.  My father's employer Rangatira Jones had recently acquired the very first horses ever to have been seen in this part of the country.  The animals’ arrival created great interest, their usefulness was as undeniable as their value; the horses’ shelters were finer than our own.

Rangatira Jones intermittently welcomed newcomers who would scratch the sour soil as unsuccessfully as their predecessors had done. They arrived by boat and were always reluctant to wet their fine boots.  As a sign of welcome, we assisted and so I allowed a boy to clamber onto my back.  He kicked at my sides, urging me onwards.  I remained oblivious of his insult until he began to whinny.  He was easily dislodged.  As he spluttered and choked we laughed, “Better to be the beast than its burden eh?”

The First Recorded Murder in Otago

A month before Johnny Jones’s pioneering farming families arrived in Waikouaiti, a shocking incident confirmed Otago’s reputation as a lawless and dangerous outpost. Otago’s first murder and its aftermath highlighted the perils of allowing an outpost to remain ungoverned.  

In 1835, Charles Darwin described the young colony’s European inhabitants as “the very refuse of society” and in the five years that followed very little had changed.  Before the arrival of settlers the European population of Otago consisted of around forty sealers, whalers and a few merchants who supplied the inhabitants with the necessities of life – predominantly grog and tobacco. Many local Maori followed the example set by these men, quickly becoming hopeless alcoholics.  The Reverent Watkin correctly observed that the “love of strong drink appears to be the source of much of the evil here”.

 At twenty four years of age Teuteraki Pauwa was a handsome young man who was well connected.  The son of a local chief, Teuteraki was described as being ‘well made’ and having a ‘pleasing expression of countenance.’ Unfortunately, newspaper accounts (written years later) also describe Teuteraki as a ‘libertine’ who possessed a ‘crafty and vengeful disposition’.  In an outpost where alcoholism and bigotry were common, it may have been convenient to attribute Teuteraki’s actions to a character defect, but they could more accurately have been ascribed to drunkenness; on the night of February 15^th, 1840, Teuteraki Pauwa had been drinking heavily.

For some years Teuteraki and a whaler-sealer by the name of James Brown had been in dispute, and on this night, Teuteraki made several unwelcome visits to Brown’s whare in the settlement of Otakou. Tempers rose and a brawl erupted, in the confusion a window was broken and Teuteraki was cut by flying glass.  The inhabitants of the whare brandished an unloaded musket to warn the enraged, drunken intruder away. He fled, but returned a short time later, firing his own weapon through the broken window.  

The bullet missed James Brown – the intended target, and lodged in the neck of a visiting ship’s carpenter. While the local population tended to the dying man as best they could, Teuteraki fled into the bush.  At daybreak the next morning a search party was dispatched but the fugitive could not be located.  It would have been better if he had remained hidden, but later that day Teuteraki returned and surrendered himself to the Europeans, thereby presenting them with an impossible dilemma.

The nearest judicial authorities were located in Sydney, or in the Bay of Islands.  Several American whaling ships were anchored nearby but no captain was willing to suspend commercial activities in order to transport a prisoner.  The captains were not unsympathetic however; an immediate American style lynching was suggested, but was rejected by the Europeans who preferred the penalty of shooting to hanging.  When the Europeans surmised that a volunteer executioner might himself eventually be tried for murder, one of the American captains offered free passage to America to any man who was willing to ‘dispatch the native.’

Since no volunteer could be found to immediately murder the prisoner, Teuteraki was locked in a small room until alternative transportation arrangements could be made.  His European visitors vividly described to him the shame that was associated with criminal conviction and transportation to the prison colonies in Australia and the brutal conditions that he could expect to encounter there.

Teuteraki begged his jailers to kill him, but he could persuade none of the Europeans to shoot him. No man was willing to act as his executioner no matter how hard he begged them to end his life.  There were easier ways to assist his suicide however.  While most of the Europeans were occupied elsewhere Teuteraki was provided with a loaded musket.  Dressed in his best clothes and accompanied by his wife he sat on the floor of his cell.  His wife positioned herself behind him with her chest pressed tightly against his back and her arms wrapped around his waist. He used his toe to pull the trigger.  The bullet passed through his chest and lodged in his wife’s heart.  They died together instantly.

This was not the end of the matter.  Local Maori were enraged by the manner in which Teuteraki and his wife had died.  When Johnny Jones's settlers arrived in Waikouaiti in March 1840, the European residents of Otakou were still expecting a Maori uprising in revenge for the deaths.  Happily the revolt never eventuated.  Discontent abated in April when James Brown and his wife were spirited away to the Bay of Islands by the French explorer d'Urville.  Soon after, the newly arrived Reverent Watkins began to exert his calming influence over the native population and the lawless European whalers.  Within a year the Reverent was able to report that "amid the wreckage of an ancient order a new life begins to emerge." 

Otakou in 1840

A Sensational Arrest near Waikouaiti

At around ten O’clock on the night of Sunday March 14^th, 1880 a tired and weary gentleman with a “listless attitude” sat in the dining room of the Saratoga Hotel in Blueskin.  In the adjoining bar, the hotel’s proprietor was discussing the shocking murders that had occurred earlier that same day in Dunedin.  A witness noted that having overheard this conversation, the ‘tired gentleman’ became anxious, restless and impatient and left the hotel immediately after finishing his meal.  Police were quickly notified of this man’s slightly suspicious behaviour and telegraphs were sent despatching constables from both Waikouaiti and Blueskin with instructions to arrest the man and charge him with vagrancy. 

Next day Constable Townsend set out from Waikouaiti police station with instructions to proceed in the direction of Blueskin, while Constable Colborne left Blueskin and headed north, towards Waikouaiti.  Inevitably, the two constables met on the Kilmog hill at a point about five miles south of the township of Waikouaiti.  As the two constables approached each other a third man was seen slipping into bushes on the side of the road.  The two Constables conferred and approached the man’s hiding place from opposite directions.  When challenged the stranger stepped back a pace or two and drew a revolver, brandishing it first at one Constable then at the other.  Bravely, they rushed at him and managed to subdue him before he had a chance to fire his weapon. 

The prisoner was restrained and imprisoned in the cells at Waikouaiti.  Items in his possession included a pair of opera glasses that had been being stolen from a house that had been deliberately set alight on the 13^th of March.  The prisoner quickly admitted responsibility for this burglary and arson, however he was very soon after charged with the additional crime of murder.  The ‘suspicious man’ (soon identified as Robert Butler) was the prime suspect in a brutal axe murder that had occurred in Cumberland Street Dunedin in the early hours of March 14^th.

On that night an elderly gentleman noticed smoke billowing from a neighbouring house, and alerted his son (a volunteer fireman) who ran to investigate.  Unable to rouse the occupants by shouting, the young man entered the house through the unlocked back door and found it filled with smoke.  He crawled through the house towards the front bedroom and discovered a woman “making a peculiar gurgling sound” lying on the bedroom 

floor.  After dragging her clear, he returned to the bedroom and extinguished the fire which had been started by a candlestick that had been placed under the bed, igniting the mattress.  On the bed lay the body of James Dewar, “quite dead,” from severe head wounds.  Blood and brain matter covered the bed and walls and a blood stained axe lay on the floor.  In the corner of the room the Dewar’s nine month old baby girl lay dead in her cot, suffocated by the smoke.  Mrs Dewar’s head had been crushed by three axe blows; she died in hospital on that same day, never having regained consciousness.                                                           

The murder weapon was found to have belonged to James Dewar however Police soon discovered three additional items of evidence at the crime scene:

·         A knife was found on the grass beneath the partially opened sitting room window.

·         Hob nailed boot marks were found on the window sill.

·         A great deal of blood had been cast about the room - it was believed that the perpetrator’s clothing must have been heavily blood-stained.

The ownership of the knife could never be established however the prisoner had been wearing clump-soled boots when arrested (boots with an additional, thick one piece sole).  An examination of these boots showed that the outer sole had been recently removed, but nails protruding from the soles could not be matched to marks on the window sill.  Butler explained that he had removed the soles of his boots to “ease his feet while walking.” His clothing was examined “by means of a magnifying glass” and specks of blood corresponding exactly with specks found at the scene of the crime were discovered on the left sleeve of the shirt - the axe blows were thought to have been struck left-handed.   Robert Butler claimed that the blood was his own, and that he had scratched his hands on bushes while attempting to evade the two Constables.

The remainder of the police evidence was entirely circumstantial. At his trial Robert Butler insisted on conducting his own defence and with significant support from the Judge did a thorough job of rebutting each point of evidence presented by the prosecution. He was known to have been in the general vicinity of the crime (‘so were many other innocent citizens’) and was criticised for having a fearful, nervous demeanour that morning (‘having just heard news of the atrocity, I was understandably shocked.’) However he did not attempt to account for his movements on the night of the murders, or explain why he had discarded perfectly good clothing – a bloodstained “suit of dark lavender with a small check” in the town belt.  The question of why he had attempted to disguise himself by clipping his moustache, before hurriedly leaving Dunedin was also not addressed.  No public transportation left Dunedin on Sundays and very few people would have chosen to walk out of town rather than wait until the following day.                                                                                  

Butler’s summing up to the jury took six hours; the jury deliberated for half that time before announcing a verdict of not guilty.  Robert Butler was acquitted on the charge of murder, but was subsequently convicted on burglary and arson charges and given the unusually harsh sentence of eighteen years hard labour.                                                      

The reasons behind the Dunedin Police Force’s suspicions of Butler (and possibly the severity of his sentence) soon became apparent. The name ‘Butler’ was an alias; the prisoner had adopted numerous false names during his extensive criminal career and had spent most of his adult life in jail.  ‘Butler’ had been jailed five times in Australia on various charges of burglary and theft.  During his thirteen years of incarceration Butler had embarked on a programme of self-improvement; he read widely and taught himself music and shorthand. On his arrived in New Zealand in 1876 the charismatic Butler was sufficiently convincing to be able to secure a position as a schoolmaster in Cromwell.  His attempted reformation was short lived; Butler left Cromwell under suspicion of theft and travelled to Dunedin where he carried out a series of burglaries and was jailed for four years.                                                                                                                                                                                     On the 18^th of February 1880 Butler was released from prison and placed under police supervision.  Once again opportunities for honest employment were offered but abandoned.  A position as a journalist was “too much for his head” and a manual labouring role ended after three hours.  On the evening of March 13^th, Butler failed to attend a prearranged meeting with his supervising detective, hours later he embarked upon his crime spree.                             

On his release from Lyttelton prison in 1896 Butler was deported to South America (neither New Zealand nor Australian authorities being prepared to tolerate his residency).  He soon returned to Australia however, where he resumed a life of crime despite being shadowed by the police.  In 1905 he was convicted of the murder of a man he had shot during an attempted robbery.  On the days preceding his hanging he played hymns on the prison organ, on the scaffold he expressed remorse for his actions, his victim and his wasted life. 

Accidental Drowning, or Murder?

In the second half of the nineteenth century it was quite common for seamen to ‘jump ship’ at New Zealand

ports.  Hundreds deserted, lured ashore by plentiful grog, and the hopes of plentiful gold. Many escapes were well planned, coordinated efforts; in expectation of rescue sailors would set fire to their ship, or await an opportunity to steal a lifeboat and row ashore.  Other escape attempts were simply desperate.                        

In January 1865, the steamer Mulloch was leaving Lyttelton harbour when it encountered a man perched inside an ordinary wooden tub, floating in the ocean near Godley Head.  The runaway sailor and his supplies (a bottle of rum and a boot full of ship’s biscuits) were taken on board the steamer, but as soon as the vessel neared shore, the man plunged into the ocean, swam ashore and ran off.  This might seem to be the obvious means of escaping from a ship, but in the nineteenth century, swimming was usually a seaman’s last method of choice – most had never learned this skill.

This was the case on the night of February 12th 1862, when three seamen jumped into the sea from the clipper ship Young America, soon after it had anchored at the Otago Heads.  One man attempted to keep himself afloat by attaching a bundle of corks wrapped in canvas to his back; his dead body was found, back afloat but head submerged next morning,  The body of the second seaman was discovered days later, half buried in the beach at Purakaunui, "much decomposed."  He was identified by the boots that he had unwisely tied around his waist. The third man - John Grey, ex third officer of the Young America swam safely to shore.  On this occasion his swimming ability saved his life, soon after, this same ability would lead to a charge of murder. 

John Grey was a fugitive who had good cause to avoid the police.  If caught he risked being arrested and charged with desertion, however it was much more likely that he would simply be returned to the Young America and punished.  Ships Captains rewarded local police for returning deserters and Constable Coffey of Port Chalmers was known to be a particularly successful bounty hunter.  John Grey fled over the hills to Blueskin, where he found temporary employment helping a local settler dip sheep. 

There was no disputing that fact that on the night of April 6^th 1862, John Grey had been drinking.  When called to give evidence at the coroner’s inquest Grey recalled visiting Dickson’s Half Way House on the Blueskin road and ‘shouting’ drinks for a group of four strangers before leaving the hotel with a bottle of whisky. He claimed to have no recollection of accompanying the group a mile and a half downhill to their boat.  One of the survivors of that boat trip disputed Grey’s claims of drunkenness stating that “he was the worse for liquor, but could walk down to the boat and knew well enough what he was about.” Whether he remembered it or not, Grey willingly agreed to accompany the group who set off rowing across the bay, intent on returning to their camp site at Purakaunui. The boat soon stuck fast in the mud.  John Grey and a man named John Cross leaped out and pushed while the others shoved with oars, but the boat remained hard aground.  Soon after, Grey and Cross set off wading through the shallow water towards the shore.                                         

Shortly afterwards Cross was heard shouting “for God’s sake come and save me, I am drowning.” The drowning man was known to be a good swimmer and was relatively sober but there was deep mud in places around the harbour’s edge.  His three companions were drunk and could not swim, nobody volunteered to leave the boat in order to rescue their drowning mate. 

Within a short time John Grey returned to the boat, soaking wet and missing his cap, having been completely submerged.  When asked if he could swim, Grey replied that he had escaped from the Young America by swimming ashore.  The three men in the boat begged Grey to rescue their drowning companion, gave him whiskey for sustenance and lit matches to mark the position of their boat in the darkness. Grey could be heard ‘Coo-eeing’ in the darkness, while Cross continued to scream for help.  After about fifteen minutes nothing further was heard so the three men settled down on a “swag and a sail” in the boat and slept, assuming that their mate had been rescued.

At high tide the next morning the boat floated free and so the men returned to Dickson’s where they ate breakfast and drank until the afternoon.  Returning to their boat, they discovered that the tide was dead low and so they set off to walk back to their camp.  About five hundred yards from their boat they discovered the dead body of John Cross, lying face down among the sea shells, surrounded by crabs. When they turned the body over in order to carry it above the high tide mark they noticed cuts beneath the eyes and blood on the dead man’s face.  The Constable who was called to the scene considered the wounds to be suspicious and soon afterwards John Grey was located, five miles away ‘washing sheep.’ Grey denied all knowledge of the dead man and when questioned “appeared to be stupid or ignorant.” He was taken into custody and searched, when a blood stained razor was found inside his boot he was charged with the wilful murder of John Cross.

Three days after the body was discovered an inquest was held at the Port Chalmers Hotel.  Immediately after being sworn in, the jury was taken to examine the single item of evidence – the dead man’s body, which had been placed in an adjoining shed. The ‘marks of violence’ on the corpse’s face were the only indications of unnatural death; police detectives had been unable to uncover either a motive or a single additional piece of physical evidence.                                                     

The examining doctor stated that the facial wounds were merely superficial and announced that death was due to “suffocation in water.” His scrutiny of the corpse’s head showed that the cuts beneath the eyes had been caused by a blunt object, and certainly not by a sharp one (such as a razor) and that these wounds were unlikely to have been created by contact with sharp shells. He also noted that the cartilage at the edges of the dead man’s ears had been ‘eroded’.

The jury returned an open verdict and John Grey was released from custody however the Coroner was far from happy with the facts that had emerged at the inquest.  Blame was spread widely.  John Grey’s dubious ancestry and his history as a deserter were criticised, the Coroner advised Grey to learn from this experience and hoped that he might choose to redeem his character, however his harshest criticism was reserved for the disgraceful behaviour of the three men who had remained in their boat, sending “a mere lad to do their work”.                       The Coroner thundered: “I cannot believe it possible, that in any part of her Majesty’s dominions, three men, aye, three ENGLISHMEN could be found who hearing a fellow creature, and that fellow creature their own mate, call to them “For God’s sakes save me I am drowning” could coolly lie down in their boat and endeavour to go to sleep without rendering him assistance.”

The question of how the dead man had acquired superficial facial wounds was not resolved; no evidence suggested that they had been caused by John Grey.  The coroner had supposed that because they were located beneath the eyes, rather than on the ‘prominent’ facial features, they could not have been caused by the body coming into contact with shells on the bay’s oyster beds. Strangely no person ever considered that they might have been caused by the numerous crabs that surrounded the body when it

was discovered. 

The Baby in the Box

On the first Saturday in March 1878, three children followed a track into the bush at Blueskin Bay to gather firewood. Returning with their kindling they reported finding a box, tied with string that they had touched but not opened.  One parent, a Mrs Pepperell, accompanied one of the children to investigate the find.  She discovered an ordinary St Mungo soap box, well tied with “the type of string that might be used to construct a clothes line”.  An envelope was tucked beneath the string. After reading the words that were written in capital letters on the envelope Mrs Pepperell was inclined to investigate no further and sent the child that had accompanied her, running to fetch a constable. The message read: “If you find my motherless darling, I pray you for Jesus’ sake bury it in the true Catholic way.”                                                                                                                          

Constable Moroney can hardly have been startled to discover that the box contained the body of a dead baby.  The scene was examined; the Constable noted that no footprints were visible nearby and that little attempt had been made to hide the box.  It lay exposed and uncovered within clear site of the bush track, no more than twenty meters from the railway line. The children who discovered it swore that it had not been in the same place the previous day.                                                                                                                                                                                                 The Constable must have considered that babies (even dead ones) were women’s business.  Mrs Pepperell was tasked with undressing and examining the tiny body.  She ascertained that the baby was a boy, guessed its age at between two and three weeks and reported that it appeared to be plump, well cared for and was “very well dressed”.  She noted a broad black discoloration around the baby’s neck.  Constable Moroney added few extra useful details, he described the body as being “white and fresh” with very little evidence of putrescence.  He denied seeing marks on the baby’s neck and stated that Mrs Pepperell had not drawn his attention to any such discoloration.                                                                                                                                                               

The body was transported to Dunedin and was quickly identified. At the initial coroner’s enquiry Mrs Bohanna, a nurse from Port Chalmers identified the baby’s clothing – she had cared for the child and testified to have personally dressed it. John Drysdale, a medical practitioner from Port Chalmers recognised the baby that he had delivered a fortnight previously by “its peculiarly shaped nose, of a very uncommon shape.” The dead baby’s mother had introduced herself to doctor and nurse as a Mrs Cantor from Melbourne.  She claimed to have been travelling in the North Island for two months and told them that she had decided to undergo her confinement in Otago because she was unwilling to undertake a steamer voyage to Australia in her ‘condition’.  ‘Mrs Cantor’ was soon identified as a thirty three year old woman from Timaru named Susan De Costa.  Mrs De Costa was duly compelled to attend the second coronial enquiry.                                                                                                     

Susan De Costa already had eight young children; the birth of another baby might not have aroused much comment if it hadn’t been for the fact that she had been widowed three years previously.  She had somehow managed to conceal her pregnancy, and travelled to Dunedin  when the birth was imminent,  using a false name “for the sake of my family, as I did not desire my condition to be known, and wished it to be kept as private as possible.”  Not all family members were unaware of the birth however; Susan De Costa was accompanied to Dunedin by her nine year old daughter Julia and seven year old son Alfred.  The children were entrusted to the care of the landlady of a boarding house in Rattray Street while their mother convalesced in Nurse Bohanna’s home.  The nurse reported that Mrs Cantor had declined to feed the baby which was being “bought up on the bottle” and that with the exception of a single convulsive attack it had thrived while under her care.  After ten days ‘Mrs Cantor’ persuaded the nurse to care for the child for a further two days while she returned to Dunedin.  Nurse Bohanna was openly suspicious; aware that Mrs Cantor did not “take to the baby as a mother should” she quite sensibly worried that the child would be abandoned and left in her care.                                                           

Mrs Cantor was reunited with her children in Dunedin, but was concerned enough about her baby’s health to write to Nurse Bohanna enquiring after its well being. The letter was produced at the coronial enquiry, where it was noted that the envelope was identical to the one found on the St Mungo’s soap box.                                         During her Dunedin visit Mrs Cantor also went to some trouble to acquire a small wooden box from her landlady, explaining that she wished to send some fruit to Timaru.  The landlady did not identify the St Mungo soap box as being the same box that she had given to her lodger, and remarked that she thought that her box had some red paper.  A juror later remarked that the box in evidence bore a paper label, on which the soap brand name was printed in red ink.                                                                                                                                                         

When the mother returned to the nurse’s residence in Port Chalmers two days later, the pair argued; Mrs Cantor left, taking the baby and her two elder children with her to a boarding house opposite the Port Chalmers railway station.  The baby was heard crying “normally” that night.  Next morning Nurse Bohanna visited the boarding house to deliver a laudanum/vinegar mixture for the new mother’s breasts.  The nurse testified that Mrs Cantor had told her the child was “first rate” before shutting the door in her face. Soon afterwards, Mrs Cantor and her children left the boarding house to catch the Dunedin train.  The proprietor carried some of her belongings to the station for her as Mrs Cantor was carrying her silent, immobile baby tightly wrapped in a white woollen shawl. At the train station the wife of the Port Chalmers Town Clerk, watched the family and noticed that the baby was not being nursed and was “lying carelessly” across its mother’s knees.  When the train arrived in Dunedin the same witness watched the mother carrying the ‘shawl’ climb into a cab.  When Mrs Cantor and her children arrived at their Dunedin boarding house soon after, the baby was nowhere to be seen.                                                           

Giving evidence, Susan De Costa denied telling the nurse that the baby was “first rate” arguing that it had been unwell, suffering from convulsions, “screaming and rolling its eyes around” almost all night long, until she added “a half a drop of laudanum into a bottle of milk.” When setting out for the train station next morning she claimed to have been “struck with horror” when she discovered that the child was dead. “I did not know what to do for the best.  I thought of the shame and disgrace I had brought on my family and thought I would keep it quiet till I got to Dunedin.”  She then stated that she had confided her “great burden” to a short, stout man with darkish hair whom she encountered on the train platform in Dunedin.  She explained that she had given the shawl wrapped baby to the man who had promised to “bury it in the usual way” for the sum of five pounds.                                                 

The following day Mrs Cantor and her two children caught the excursion train to Blueskin.  The train was crowded, Mrs Cantor was seen to be carrying a bundle, but neither box, nor baby was noticed.  The Coroner who presided over the inquest noted that “at least one hour of Mrs De Costa’s time was quite unaccounted for during her visit to Blueskin.” He also reminded the jury of the purpose of the inquest, the question of who had disposed of the child’s body being quite irrelevant, the jurors’ task was to determine how the child had died.                         

Considerable medical evidence was given at the inquest; three doctors had conducted a post mortem examination of the child’s body – their examinations uncovered no evidence to suggest that death had been caused by an overdose of Laudanum. They agreed that the child had died from “obstruction of breathing” but were not able to determine whether the obstruction had been caused by natural means (convulsions) or by unnatural means (smothering).  Death by strangulation was ruled out because nobody apart from Mrs Pepperell had observed marks on the child’s neck.  The Coroner reminded the jury that they had a choice of three verdicts: death by natural causes, death by non-natural causes or if they considered that there was insufficient evidence to return either of the first two verdicts, they must give an open verdict.                                                                         

Their verdict was completely unexpected.  After deliberations, the foreman stated that “the child died at the hands of the mother, wilfully and with intent to kill” As there was no medical evidence to support such a verdict, the Coroner gave the jury five minutes to reconsider their verdict.  They could not be persuaded otherwise and confirmed a verdict that was equivalent to murder.  Mrs De Costa was taken into custody, fainting and screaming.  Her case never came to trial, it was abandoned and Susan De Costa was freed when the grand jury determined that there was insufficient evidence to proceed.                                                                                       

Perhaps if the case had gone ahead, some lawyer might have examined her motives more thoroughly.  Having gone to such great lengths to conceal the pregnancy and birth, she could hardly have returned to Timaru with the child.  Had she hoped to abandon it? Was she planning on paying a baby farmer, like Minnie Dean to care for it? Or had infanticide always been her intention?

Murder at Matanaka - A fatal argument over chops

Murder at Matanaka – a Fatal Argument over Chops.

In 1865 Matanaka farm was being managed by John Richard Jones, the eldest son of Johnny Jones, Jones senior having long since retired to Dunedin. Among the various labourers who lived and worked at Matanaka, John Scott and Donald Weir were considered to have been two of the more quiet and respectable workers.  They had been employed there for three and two years respectively and for eighteen months had been quite peacefully sharing a workers hut.
 

Donald Weir was the younger of the two, a regular churchgoer, he was a powerfully built man, over six feet in height who was known as ‘big Dan.’ John Scott was somewhat shorter, a thickset Scotsman of around thirty years of age, who was not known to have been a troublemaker.  The tiny hut that Scott and Weir shared measured no larger than ‘a dozen feet each way’ - it was necessarily sparsely furnished. The constable who was called to the scene early on the morning of Sunday February 19^th, 1865 made a careful sketch of the hut’s interior.  He observed that Donald Weir’s good suit of clothes was carefully laid out on his stretcher and that a plate of chops and a basin of tea sat on the table.  Beside the table lay Donald Weirs bloodied body, a clean table knife clutched in his hand. 

The farm overseer was the first person to become aware of the incident.  Scott fetched him, complaining of a brawl and asking him to “help to lift this man.” When confronted with a bloodied body the overseer quite wisely fled, fetching his employer to the scene.  Jones junior, who was perhaps somewhat squeamish declined to enter the hut, but took the appropriate actions. The overseer was instructed to determine whether the body was still warm (it was), the prisoner was detained and the constable and doctor were summoned.

Joseph Cutcliffe, the Waikouaiti mounted constable was a thorough man.  In examining the murder scene he quickly discovered two possible murder weapons.  A sheath knife with a visible blood spot lay on the table and a broken and bloody stool leg lay beside the victim’s head. He carefully recorded the physical appearance of his prisoner before arresting him.   The accused’s body bore signs of a violent struggle, one cheek was swollen, an eye was blackened and one of his fingers had been cut almost to the bone.  Several marks that soon developed into fist sized bruises were found on his torso.  At the time of his arrest Scott’s trousers and boots were covered in blood.

Joseph Crocome, the doctor from Hawksbury Bush was less methodical; he externally examined the victim’s fatal wounds but declined to carry out a full post mortem seeing no reason to “mutilate a body without good reason.”  At Scott’s trial he reported that Weir’s face had a cleanly incised four inch gash that extended from right ear to cheek.  This cut had bled profusely, and the underlying cheek bone had been fractured.  Three additional facial wounds had been noted, in the doctor’s opinion these wounds had been “almost certainly produced by a kick.” He considered that death had been caused by the combined effects of haemorrhage and injury to the brain caused by violent blows.

Despite being warned by Sergeant Cutcliffe to be “careful what he said” Scott changed his story three times.  He immediately admitted that he and Weir had quarrelled and fought but initially claimed to have no knowledge of how the deceased might have cut his face.  When confronted with the doctor’s analysis of the victim’s wounds he admitted to striking Weir with a leg that he had wrenched from a stool.  Two days later he once again changed his story, denying that the bloody stool leg had been the murder weapon and claiming to have struck the victim across the face with an old spade that had been standing beside the fireplace. In his panic Scott had discarded the spade but the diligent Sergeant Cutcliffe eventually discovered it on a cliff face “within yards of the sea” and delivered it to a scientific expert for analysis. James Hector, Otago’s provincial geologist microscopically examined the spade and was able to determined that the three or four spots on its surface were indeed blood traces but was unable to determine whether the blood was human.  

Although he varied the description of the weapon that he had used, John Scott’s motive was unwavering.  He maintained to have acted in self-defence, retaliating in fear of his life after being attacked by a much taller, stronger man.   On that particular Sunday morning Scott claimed to have been sitting at the hearth, frying chops in the camp oven for breakfast when Weir had attacked him.  An argument had developed after Weir had asked Scott why the meat hadn’t been fetched the previous day and Scott had replied that “it was as much your place to fetch it as it was mine.”                

The details of this meat-based argument were never fully explained.  Had the (two day old?) chops spoiled in the summer heat and Weir was angry because there was nothing better to eat? Or were there simply not enough chops left over from previous meals to satisfy the big man’s appetite?  Whatever the basis for the trivial argument might have been Weir was certainly angry enough at being denied a proper Sabbath breakfast to have resorted to violence.  In Scott’s statement he claimed that Weir snatched the knife he was using to turn the meat from him, cutting his hand and that Weir kicked and punched him.  This initial beating was followed by further threats of violence and Scott stated that when he saw Weir standing by the table with knife and fork in hand (about to eat?) he became frightened and struck out at his attacker.

The lawyer at Scott’s trial attributed inconsistencies in his statements to “excitement and fear” while highlighting the consistency of his claims of self-defence.  John Richard Jones was called to act as a character witness and gave such a glowing account of Scott’s reputation that the prisoner was reduced to tears.   Suggestions that the cut to Scott’s left hand could have been caused by the deceased wrenching away a weapon were discredited after Jones junior was recalled to the stand and testified that Scott was right handed.  In summing up to the jury, his honour Mr Justice Chapman stated that it was remarkable that the quarrel should have occurred on a Sunday, “a day on which men who are peaceably disposed are generally disposed to be more peaceable.” He suggested that a fight on the Sabbath was an unusual occurrence that suggested impulsiveness rather than premeditation and that this should be “the first step toward considering the offence manslaughter rather than murder.

The jury followed his instructions and returned a verdict of “Guilty of Manslaughter.” John Scott was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment with hard labour.  The location of Donald Weir’s grave is unknown.