MURDER MYSTERY

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVII, Issue 6, 4 December 1926, Page 6

MURDER MYSTERY

CHRISTMAS NIGHT TRAGEDY. WOMAN’S SENSATIONAL STORY. TORONTO, Oct. 2. On Christmas night last year Miss Claire Earner, • a night telephone operator in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, was startled to hear a woman’s voico calling for “Police” to come at once to 545, Fourth Avenue North. At this address the police found Mrs Laura Johnson, a woman about 35. She was standing near the kitchen table, her hands and feet tied with strips of cloth and a gag in her mouth. In the front bedroom was her husband, James E. Johnston, a railway mail clerk, suffering from terrible wounds apparently inflicted by a blunt instrument. Mrs Johnson’s story, as told to the police, was that sho and her husband had gone to bed early on Christmas night after a quiet day at home, and sho had fallen asleep. She was awakened by a flash of light, and she thought she heard thuds near her. She was suddenly hauled from bed, when she fainted, and knew no more until she found herself lying near a couch in the front room, which is just off the bedroom. With great effort, said Mrs Johnson, she worked her way to the bathroom, realising from his groans that her husband was injured, and managed, she spid, to grasp a tooth brush in her teeth. She worked her way from the bathroom to the telephone, and knocked off the receiver. She rang the long distance number on the automatic dial, with the tooth brush, which she had firmly fixed between her teeth. Johnson succumbed to his injuries nine days later at the hospital. There was an inquest, at the conclusion of which Mrs Johnson was arrested and charged with the murder of her husband. Police investigation showed that “Jimmie” Johnson was without an enemy. It was also found that a son had been sent from home on a visit to a relative in the country shortly before the crime. It was emphasised at the inquest and later that, while the blows that killed Johnson scattered blood over the bedclothes and even the walls of the room, the night clothes of his wifo were spotless. ' Witnesses also maintained that it would have taken almost a superhuman effort to turn the dial of the automatic telephone. From February until April tho woman was in the cells. Then, on an application on the part of her counsel, she was released on £4OOO, bail. The other day there was a further application, this time by the prosecutor, and for a stay of proceedings. When this was granted Mrs Johnson stepped from the Court room a free woman, although the murder charge still hangs over her. At any time under tho stay of proceedings, should the prosecution so desire, she may bo called upon to stand her trial. But the public mind scarcely entertains further proceedings against Mrs Johnson as a possibility, and regards the case as the most baffling murder mystery in the history of Saskatchewan.