The horse that solved a murder

Mickey was a mostly ordinary horse. But he had a habit of overstepping - meaning his hind legs reached over his front during a walk.
It was enough to solve a murder.
Sydney or Sidney Seymour Eyre and his wife Millicent had gone to bed in their cottage farmhouse at Pukekawa on August 24, 1920. Millicent heard a dog barking outside and went to see what it was but heard an almighty boom in the bedroom.
She heard quick footsteps leaving and lit a match and was met with the horrific sight of her husband with the top of his head blown off.
She sent her sons for the police - and it was Detective-Sergeant James Cummings (who would later become police commissioner) who got the call about a murder. It would be dawn before he arrived.
Eyre had turned uncultivated land into a thriving farm. Nearby lived his neighbour James Murray for whom Samuel John Thorne worked for.
Millicent was barely coherent but was able to say she could hear a horse galloping away, over what she thought was the bridge at the back of the farm.
Near the bridge Cummings found horse prints. He set a police officer who had once been a blacksmith to look at them. They were exceptionally large in size, and the odd characteristics could be clearly seen.
Concerning these peculiar marks, one of the detectives at the trial said: “The peculiarities of the near front shoe are: the shoe is not concave on the inside; it has the fullering-bulge each side of the clip of the toe; and it has a bulge on the right side of the clip, the same as the previous shoe.”
Following the tracks, too, it was noticeable that the horse had the habit of overstepping considerably. In order that the best of the hoof-marks should be preserved the detectives covered them with wooden boxes. The boxes were subsequently removed, and the shoes taken by the detectives were compared with the impression.
Samuel Thorne had worked for Eyre until shortly before the murder. The police examined several horses he might have used. There was no match for Dick or Major but Mickey had exactly the same measurements and characteristics as seen in the prints near the bridge. His horseshoes were taken for evidence.
Further, Thorne’s saddle fitted with no adjustment needed.
At the first trial, a jury was unable to agree but the second trial was a sensation. Millicent admitted she had slept with Thorne but when her husband came back from the war she broke it off and Thorne had become insanely jealous.
Thorne’s lawyer did not call evidence but did tell the jury that even if the prints were Mickey’s it did not mean Thorne had done it and implicated Mrs Eyre instead.
After four hours, the jury found him guilty.
The judge sentenced him to death and he was hanged on December 20, 1920 at Mount Eden jail. He claimed until the last that he did not do it and did not know who did.
By that time, the practice of burying murderers in the prison yard was over and Thorne is buried in Waikumete Cemetery.​