TRAGEDY AT RONGAHERE
FATHER ATTACKS CHILDREN.
DAUGHTER DIES OF INJURIES.
Press association DUNEDIN, May 10. The police were advised this morning that Dr Stenhouse, of Balclutha, had been rung up by Mr Pannett, of Wharetoa, saving that a farmer named John Sharp, of Rongahere, had attacked his children during Saturday. The children had got away from him, but in the evening he attacked two. One got away, but the other, a girl named Sophia, seven years of age, was rendered unconscious. Mr Pannett asked the doctor to come to the scene and bring a constable with him.
Dr Stenhouse and Constable Findlay, from Balclutha, set out for Rongahere, arriving at 3 o'clock this morning. The injured girl, with other members of the family, were with Mrs Ireland. On examination, the doctor found that the child's head had been battered in. He took her in his car and started out for Dunedin, with the object of placing her in the hospital, but by the time he had gone seven miles she expired. He thereupon returned with the body to Mrs Ireland's and left it there. Mrs Sharp had been in delicate health and was staying in Dunedin.
Sharp is described as 70 years old, 5ft l0in in height, stout, dressed roughly, and with straggled beard. A party of police also left from Invercargill, the scene of the tragedy being on the borderland of Otago and Southland police districts.
Sharp made for Lawrence, and there gave himself up at the police station. He stated to Sergeant Kidd that, he had struck one of his girls, but thought she was all right. -Sun, 17/5/1920.
RONGAHERE TRAGEDY
Father's Fearful Crime
BEATS HIS LITTLE DAUGHTER TO DEATH.
Sharp Sentenced to Hang.
On Friday last, at Dunedin Supreme Court, before his Honor, Mr. Justice Sim and a jury, John Sharp, farmer, was charged with murdering his daughter, Sophie McLean Sharp, aged 7, at Rongahere, on May 15 last. Lawyers B. S. Irwin and Grigor appeared for the prisoner.
When asked to plead he said, "Guilty to killing Sophia Sharp, but not guilty to Sophia McLean Sharp."
Lawyer Irwin remarked that if the prisoner's mental condition now is that he is insane, he did not see how he could plead. Sharp did not seem to know that his daughter was christened Sophia McLean.
His Honor accepted the plea as one of not guilty and said that the question of his sanity could be left to the jury.
Lawyer Irwin said that the facts of the case as possessed by the Crown would not be disputed.
Crown Prosecutor A. S. Adams said that at the time of the occurrence accused lived on his farm at Rongahere, in the Clutha Valley, near Clydevale, with his wife, four daughters, Sarah, 19, Jean, 14, Isabella, 11, and Sophia, 7 years of age. In April, Mrs. Sharp left for Dunedin to visit her sick mother. Sarah, who had been at service, returned and assumed charge of the household. On May 11, accused became violent. He complained that his wife was too long away and should come home. The same day he threatened his daughters that if their mother did not return by Friday's coach he
WOULD SHOOT THEM ALL. He continued quarrelsome during the week. Being very deaf, he was suspicious, and when his daughters were talking and laughing among themselves he imagined they were talking about and laughing at him. He repeated his threat to them. On Saturday, May 15, Sarah received a letter from her mother. She read it to her father, but did not read the whole of it. He demanded the letter from her, and he then rushed at her, and she threw it in the fire, from which he recovered it. In the letter the mother stated that it did not matter whether she came home that Friday or the next Friday as he (the accused) would still kick up a row. She said she had decided to stay in town, that she could get 7s a day cleaning in the hospital, but that she would return home and get her belongings. When accused secured the letter he threatened to kill Sarah, and she ran out and did not come back until late when her father was in bed. She sent the other girls to bed. Shortly after accused rushed into the kitchen and struck Sarah, knocking her down. She grappled with him and called out. The other girls ran out of their room, and Sarah sent Isabella for Mr. Ireland. Sarah ran out by the back door and the other girls by the front. They screamed. He picked up a piece of manuka and went after. Sophia, finding her near the cow byre. He used the weapon on her, striking her
BLOWS ON THE HEAD until she ceased to cry out. He then went away. Mr. Ireland and Mr. Cruikshanks arrived after and carried Sophia to Ireland's house. Dr. Stenhouse came from Balclutha at 3 a.m. and found that the little girl's injuries were very serious. He put her in his motor car to take her to the Dunedin Hospital, but she died on the way. At 8 a.m. on Sunday accused arrived at Lawrence Police Station and told Sergeant Kidd what he had done. He signed a statement to the effect that when he asked for his wife's letter Cis (Sarah) caught hold of him by the whiskers and got him on the floor and the other three jumped on top of him. He got clear, and, as he went, he picked up a piece of manuka and struck Sophia.
Cross-examined by Lawyer Grigor, Sarah Sharp, the eldest girl, said she had seen a marked change in her father for the past year or two. He suffered from fits of depression. Some nine or ten years back he had a blow on the head from a falling tree. One of his sons, who was to take over the farm, had been killed in the war.
Questioned by Lawyer Irwin, David Ireland said he had known Sharp for eleven years. He was a very queer man, and had a very violent temper.
Dr. Stenhouse stated that the cause of the girl's death was fracture of the skull with concussion and laceration of the brain substance.
For the defence, Lawyer Irwin called several medical men.
Dr. Murray, Lawrence, considered that accused was
SUFFERING FROM DELUSION INSANITY. Accused told witness that he had gone to Lawrence to lay a charge of assault against his daughter. Witness was of the opinion that Sharp harbored delusions of jealousy, and believed his family wanted to get rid of him.
Doctor Ross and Evans were of the opinion that he was certifiable under the Mental Defectives' Act. Doctors Hunter and Marshall MacDonald gave evidence of a similar nature.
His Honor submitted that the point was whether accused was laboring under a diseased mind to such an extent as to render him unable to understand the nature and culpability of his acts. The answer was "no."
The jury finally retired at 5.20, returning at 11 p.m. with a verdict of guilty, and a strong recommendation to mercy. His Honor then assumed the black cap, and addressing Sharp, said: "You have been convicted of the crime of the murder of your own daughter. The decision at which the jury have arrived seems to be the only one at which it could come. The jury has made a recommendation to mercy, which will be forwarded to the Executive Council. Meantime, I have to pass upon you the punishment fixed by law. The sentence of the court is that you be taken hence to the prison, and thence to the place of execution, and hanged by the neck until you are dead." -NZ Truth, 14/8/1920
The Executive Council has reprieved John Sharp of his sentence of death for the murder of his daughter at Rongahere. -Waipawa Mail, 13/8/1920.
The law is responsible for strange situations at times, and not everybody will be able to understand why a man, who battered in the head of his little daughter in one of his fits of violent temper, should be sent to an asylum for the rest of his life, to become a subject for study by mental specialists, instead of meeting what many would term a richly deserved fate (remarks the Otago Daily Times). This, however, is the end of John Sharp, who was transferred to Seacliff Mental Hospital from the Dunedin Gaol on Wednesday by direction of the Minister of Justice. Sharp was sentenced to death for the Rongahere murder, but the jury recommended him to mercy on the grounds of insanity, and Cabinet commuted the sentence. -Taranaki Herald, 1/9/1920.
AWAITING JURY'S VERDICT
Notable Murder Trials Recalled By Hardie Case (excerpt)
(From "N.Z. Truth's" Special Dunedin, Representative.) "What will the verdict be?" Once again the cloisters of the Dunedin Supreme Court have echoed the high tension of conjecture when a human life hung on the final word from twelve good men and true . . . locked away In the jurors' room.
The last time the dread chant of "Guilty" to a murder charge issued us the finding of a Dunedin jury, was when John Sharp committed what his own counsel described as "the most brutal and dreadful crime ever committed m the country." .Sharp battered his young daughter's head to pulp with a manuka stick at their home at Rongahere, about the middle of 1920. It took the jury 5 1/2 hours to agree, finally bringing in a verdict as stated, with a recommendation to mercy. Sharp is now in a mental asylum. -NZ Truth, 8/11/1928.
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