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Keith D Trestrail | + Follow Poet |
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Beyond Reasonable Doubt

 Bang! Bang! Who shot and killed
   Jeanette and Harvey Crewe?
 By whose hand was their blood spilled?
   The cops they surely knew.
 Two fatal shots rang out that day
   and to a grisly murder led -
 no witness or trail to point and say
   who shot them cold and dead.

 Dumped in the Waikato River mire
   Jeanette would first be found,
 trussed in a duvet tied with copper wire -
   her body wrapped and bound.
 And Harvey upriver of Devil’s Elbow
   given up by the murky tide,
 weighed down by an axle beam below
   far from where he fell and died.

 The coppers they had their man
   in one Arthur Allan Thomas.
 They fitted him up and so it all began,
   but for the grace of God go us!
 They searched his Pukekawa farm
   and took his rifle from inside,
 but said Arthur “I did them no harm,
   I swear I have nothing to hide”.

 But instead of his release granted
   they would their steps retrace,
 and on the third search they planted
   the damming cartridge case.
 Exhibit 350 would magically appear
   for the coppers at their behest -
 now they had their prey in their snare
   and issued a warrant for arrest.

“Were you rabbit shooting that night
   and return before the risen sun?
 Did you have them both in your sight
   and kill them with your gun?
 Did you their bloodied corpses carry
   to the river after the fatal shot?
 Was it you whose conscience took pity
   and spared the baby in the cot?”.

 A media frenzy joined to incriminate
   and for double murder blamed,
 but the cartridge case sealed his fate
   and was well and truly framed.
 Twelve of his peers did the law mock
   with a heart of bias to convict -
 and the accused sat fearful in the dock
   as the jury returned its verdict.

 Thus twice tried for murder was he
   in the highest court in the land,
 yes, and twice a scapegoat found guilty
   by the lies on the witness stand.
 Forty five years on and yet unsolved,
   still suspicion upon him falls,
 but no charge was laid to all involved
   who put him behind prison walls.

 Bang! Bang! Who shot and killed
   Jeanette and Harvey Crewe?
 By whose hand was their blood spilled?
   The cops they surely knew!
 By Royal Pardon his injustice spared
   and after nine long years let out -
 his marriage over but his name cleared
  “Beyond Reasonable Doubt!”.


       Written: December 2015

Copyright © Keith D Trestrail | Year Posted 2022

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