Beyond Reasonable Doubt?, page 49
The defence claims that the accused never left his home on the night of June 17th, that is at any time when these killings could happen. The defence claims that the Crown evidence in any event is not sufficient to prove guilt in the manner, of course, and to the extent which I have laid down for you. The Crown claims that when this evidence is properly evaluated and weighed it proves that the accused, despite what he and his wife say, did leave his home that night, and that it proves beyond reasonable doubt that it was the accused who fired the rifle at the Crewes’ house on that night, and that it does enable you – it is a matter for you – to exclude the reasonable possibility that anyone else could have done it. Now that, as I have told you again and again, depends upon your evaluation of the whole of the evidence. It is for the Crown to prove its case, prove it to the extent that I have stated to you. It is no business of the defence to prove innocence or even prove a reasonable doubt. The defence, if it can show any weakness in the Crown case, if it can bring you to the stage where you have a reasonable doubt, then, of course, you ought to acquit, but that is only argument on the evidence. The burden of proof, as we call it, to prove the crime and to prove who was the criminal, rests and rests always upon the Crown, and it is now for you to come to your decision applying the principles of law I have laid down to you, and considering – as I am sure you will – all those matters that have been put to you by both Counsel, and considering – as I am sure you will – this circumstantial evidence on the basis I have put to you. You can do what you like about it. You are not bound to do that, but that is the method whereby circumstantial evidence is used and tested and considered, and you ought so to use it, you ought so to test it and so consider it, but what you shall do and how you shall do it, I have been at pains to tell you, is purely a matter for you, nothing to do with me at all. You observe the law as I have laid down to you, and within that, giving fair and careful consideration to everything, as I am sure you will, you will reach the verdict that you think proper. The matter now rests with you. Will you kindly retire to consider your verdict.
APPENDIX 6
Final Speech of Crown Solicitor David Morris to Second Trial Jury
The murders occurred on the eve of the Crewes’ fourth wedding anniversary. Harvey Crewe was sitting in his armchair and Jeannette was knitting on the couch. As was his custom, Harvey was in stocking feet, resting after dinner before the wash-up. He had had a meal of fish and peas, had been at a stock sale during the day and may have had something to eat during the day.
He had had a full day. We know that he went to a farm at Glen Murray in the morning to inspect a bull, had morning tea at home with Mrs Pirrett and Jeannette, went to a stock sale in Bombay in the afternoon and in the late afternoon was working on a drain on his property.
He was no doubt tired and relaxed when sitting with his wife in the lounge after their evening meal. The baby was bedded. Television was switched off. It had been a wet day. Some of Harvey’s clothes were drying in the drier.
It was a wet and windy night. The dogs were kennelled well away from the house. It was easy for the murderer to come on to the property unseen and unheard. At least one of the windows in the lounge was undraped, possibly others were not drawn. A murderer familiar with the house and the practice of leaving the kitchen sliding door open would know that he could see into the lounge through the kitchen windows from the region of the back steps.
The murderer has come armed to the property and fires the first shot through the louvre windows of the kitchen at Harvey Crewe, before Harvey – who had every reason to be alert to strange noises – had time to move.
Jeannette hears the shot and hurries to her feet as the murderer enters the lounge through the kitchen and attacks her.
We fortunately do not know how long elapsed between the time Jeannette realized her husband was dying and her own death or just what happened in between.
We do know that at some stage she received a violent blow consistent with being from the butt of a rifle to her face; and that when she was finally shot, she was lying on the floor.
We also know that a long hearth mat and cushion were at some stage burned by the murderer; and also that the room was heavily bloodstained. Whether the burning of these items was like the use of two saucepans with a view to concealing the blood, or whether it was done to conceal other marks traceable to the killer or his treatment of Jeannette we do not know.
The murderer was impelled by some overwhelming motive, and that motive may have been more than merely to destroy Harvey, perhaps out of jealousy, and to silence the only other witness. The evidence is equally consistent with a desire to get to Jeannette, even if this entailed first killing her husband and later Jeannette herself.
Whether the murderer was impelled by a combination of these motives only he can say, but there is nothing to suggest any alternative.
It is common enough knowledge – and Thomas has said he well knew – that bullets in the head of the murdered person may be traced to the weapon which fired them. The murderer has therefore gone through the house to find wrappings to cover the bodies, both to conceal the flow of blood and to shield his load from view as he disposes of them.
The body wrappings show that the murderer has entered at least the main bedroom and the spare bedroom at the end of the corridor, and it is reasonable to infer that on his way from one to the other he has entered the middle bedroom; and in his search for wrappings where better to look than the wardrobe where the brush and comb set was subsequently found?
He drags the 16 stone of Harvey’s body along the floor of the lounge and out the front door, where he uses the wheelbarrow to carry it to his vehicle. The lighter body of Jeannette he may well have carried – there is no similar trail of her blood. He returns the wheelbarrow to a point under the water tank where it was subsequently found – having apparently been washed out.
At some stage the murderer has realized that after his first shot through the window which killed Harvey, in a fit of passion he has reloaded his weapon, ejecting the fired shell case, before rushing in to Jeannette.
His search for this shell case and his cleaning of the barrow are both performed by the light above the back steps and in his haste, after failing to find the shell case, he locks the back door from the outside, leaving on the back light and leaving open the louvres through which the shot was fired.
Having wrapped the bodies he no doubt takes further precautions to ensure that their blood leaves no trace on his vehicle to link him with the murders. Black polythene of the type Thomas possessed and used for lining water troughs would be ideal for that purpose.
Realizing the significance of the lead in the heads, he wires to each body a weight and sinks them in the Waikato river: not to frame some other person, but so his connection with the killings escapes detection.
Thr murderer possessed or had access to a .22 rifle which left land markings of a distinctive nature. Its distinctiveness is shown by the random sampling provided by the police test firings, which showed that out of sixty-four rifles tested, only this and one other weapon could have made such markings.
Of the three .22 pump action Brownings included in the test weapons, only this could have fired the fatal shots.
The British Home Office report records that only four of the 268 .22 weapons held there could have left indistinguishable land markings.
His weapon will also leave a shell case bearing the firing pin, ejector and extractor marks which are repeated at each shot, and are unique to that weapon.
This man also had access to the axle, which matched exactly the stubs buried in Thomas’s tip and was of the same model as the wheels found on Thomas’s farm.
He must also have had access to the particular kinds of wire later found on the bodies.
In common no doubt with many others, he must have had access to No. 8 ammunition.
And again in common with many others, he must have had access to a vehicle – whether car and trailer or tractor – which could be used to dispose of the bodies.
He must also, again in common with others – have been a sufficiently good shot to kill Harvey with the single neat shot in his head which the pathologist Dr Cairns has described. In other words, no stranger to the use of a firearm at night and confident that he would strike his target with one shot, since any blunder would have had dire consequences from Harvey.
He would have also to know how he would dispose of the bodies successfully and without discovery, particularly since the river was in flood he would need extensive knowledge of where to get a vehicle sufficiently close to the river for his purpose.
Finally – and again of great importance, if difficult to discern – he must have had motivation for the murders.
This was not a case of murder for gain – there is no suggestion that anything of value was stolen. This is an unprovoked, premeditated, well-executed, coldblooded killing.
Except for its gravity, it is no different in these respects from the burglary of 30/7/67 when money was left untouched, the fire of 7/12/68 inside the end bedroom when Jeannette was in hospital after Rochelle’s birth and again there is no evidence of any theft, and the barn fire of December 1969.
All four events result from a malicious and fierce desire to injure Harvey or Jeannette. It is reasonable to infer that all four are done not only for the same reason; but by the same person. This would indicate that the killer is no stranger to either the area or his victims.
Indeed the absence of other reasons for the killings must indicate a personal animosity of great depth, and if the other incidents are attributable to the same hand, of long standing.
Harvey was unknown in the area until his marriage four years before his death, and thereafter an incident occurred each year until the murders on the eve of their wedding anniversary. There was no evidence to suggest that Harvey had any enemy, and it is obvious that Jeannette was well liked by all with whom she came in contact.
What motive would account for the killing of this young couple?
Like the murderer, Thomas possessed a rifle .22 which produced lead bullets indistinguishable in their markings from those in the heads of Harvey and Jeannette.
Like the murderer’s weapon, Thomas’s rifle makes distinctive firing pin, ejection and extractor marks on each shell case it fires. One of these, from this rifle, was found where it might reasonably be expected to have been thrown as the result of a hasty and violent reloading in the vicinity of the louvre windows and back steps.
Whereas the murderer had access to the car axle which weighted Harvey’s body, Thomas had in his tip the two axle components – the stubs cut from that very axle.
These three parts of the old assembly taken from Rasmussen the man who altered a trailer for Thomas’s father (and against his wishes in respect of the stubs) by Richard Thomas and returned to the farm.
It may reasonably be inferred that the axle would have been treated in the same way as the stubs each side of it, and at some stage have found its way with them on to Thomas’s tip, where like the stubs, it remained unnoticed until the occasion arose for its use. This tip was, we know, visited by Thomas to dump cow 4 on 23/6/70: he was plainly in the habit of using it at about this time.
Thomas, like the murderer, had access to wire, and amongst the wire on his farm in six different places were five wires which were similar to the galvanized waist wire found on Harvey’s body, and one wire which was similar to the chest wire. On the evidence of DSIR scientist Mr Todd, four of the five wires similar to the waist wire were in excellent agreement with it, and the fifth was in good agreement.
The sixth wire was in good agreement with the chest wire.
Of these wires, ten elements in all have been tested for – Mr Todd’s original eight (of which four were tested for by defence) and two more to which Dr Devereux referred in cross-examination.
Mr Todd, with all his experience, is adamant that his opinion is correct, and you may think the undisputed facts would lead to an incredible coincidence if he were wrong.
His original results are now in respect of the chest wire supported by the work of Dr Devereux in respect of all the elements he tested with the exception of copper, where Drs Sprott and Devereux seize upon a minimal variation to justify a complete rejection of Mr Todd’s carefully considered opinion following two months’ careful work within his own specialty – however reluctant the defence advisers were to acknowledge his pre-eminence in this sphere.
In judging the matter, you may, like Mr Todd, think it highly significant that nine of the ten elements separately tested for are indistinguishable, even stretching Dr Devereux’s hypersensitive machine to its limits, and that Mr Todd is right in rejecting as overprecise the supposed copper differences.
And you may think it no less significant that a totally different wire – the galvanized waist wire – is indistinguishable in respect of eight elements on Dr Devereux’s tests, and that his distinctions between the wires on the basis of the other two results are academic.
Is it not also significant that there should be such matching between two sets of quite different lots of wires: one set waist and farm, and one set chest and farm, whereas there is no such matching between any other two of the wires taken from fourteen farms.
Although the wires are in no way crucial to the Crown case, you may think that there is really no doubt about the connection and that it is singular indeed that Thomas is the only farmer of the fourteen whose wires match the body wires.
As to ammunition and transport, although by themselves counting for little, Thomas is a man having at least one No. 8 round his shed at the time of the police search: and he has both a car and trailer (which were not, as suggested, blocked in by Peter Thomas’s car on the night of the killings) and a tractor with tray which was later used to take cow 4 to the tip.
Thomas was also a shooter – one who was accustomed to the difficult art of shooting opossums by torchlight, no doubt with no illumination of the foresight. And as a resident of Pukekawa for most of his life, he would know when and how he could get access to the river – whether by tractor down Mercer Ferry Road, or along another road, and where a vehicle could approach the river unobserved.
As to the final element to be looked for in a killer, Thomas had a motivation which was made very clear by the evidence. He had known Jeannette since primary school, and seen her go to boarding school and teachers college and then abroad while he worked in labouring jobs around the area. On her return home, she cut short her intended period of teaching at Mangatangi, and went south to Wanganui where she met and eventually married Harvey.
It is perfectly plain that even as a youth Thomas had what he described as a ‘schoolboy crush’ on Jeannette. Mrs Batkin’s evidence establishes an unusually deep emotional involvement on his part even as a youth, and faced with the evidence of valuable gifts made by him to Jeannette, Thomas has admitted that his attitude deepened still further during 1960 at Maramurua.
He denies that his going to live there – a few miles from Jeannette four days after she took up residence – was more than coincidence, even though it meant throwing up the job he had had for five years, leaving home for the first time, and leaving there at about the stage when Jeannette must have been planning her overseas trip.
You may think it strange that a man so slow to be deterred should have seen the girl he was so attached to only twice at Maramarua. We have only his version of this. He is sufficiently interested to know she is going, to get her overseas address from her father, and to send her the pen set which is the subject of the letter he retained from February 1961 until after police inquiries had begun.
On her return from the UK he visits her with the brush and comb set, and is politely told she does not want to see any more of him. On his account, this is the end of the matter – he forgets her, marries in 1964 and that is all.
But the evidence proves otherwise. To her friends Mrs Willis and Mrs MacGee, Jeannette confided that she was pestered by Thomas – and she did not know Mrs MacGee until she had gone to Wanganui. And it is plain from her father’s evidence that she complained to him about Thomas, and he was the reason for her leaving Mangatangi mid-year and travelling south – at a stage when Thomas says he thought nothing more about her.
Mr Liddell – whose evidence was uncontradicted – told the court of Thomas’s wish to marry Jeannette and the visit to the fortuneteller, who apparently assured him that all would be well between him and her when she came back from down south and that he would be able to win her back from the other man.
