THE POMOHAKA TRAGEDY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVII, Issue 158, 7 July 1896, Page 5

THE POMOHAKA TRAGEDY.

Sensational Disclosures.

(BY TKLEORAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION.)

Dpnedin, thiß day. Ijf connection with the gruesome discovery of the body ot the woman Mataon, it was on the 25th February that it was reported to the police, at Clinton that the woman's clothes had been discovered in the Pomohaka River. Tho following day a constable went out and got the clothing, and Detective Herbert,' of lnvercargill, was sent to make inquiries. The conclusion apparently arrived ab was that the woman has been drowned. Some members of the force, it is believed, all along thought; that the caao was one nf murder.

To all appearances the matter woe allowed to drop until a letter was receired by the •*• Daily Times" plainly alleging that the woman had been murdered. This letter was given to the police, and ActingDetective Broberg was eeab to make inquiries on May 15th. He tound that the writer of the letter had nothing but surmise to go upon, and no evidence was forthcoming which appeared to warrant any steps being taken to arrest Matson.

It appears that when Mrs Matson went to her bufbund's hut on the 31st February a young woman named Clark was then living in the house. Scenes followed, and Matsen drove the young woman to Clinton the following day. He admitted to Detective Herbert that MYe Matson had endeavoured to follow him, and that ho had thrashed her with a whip. Matson eenb the girl to Dunedin, and while in Clinton, meeting some rabbiters who, had worked with him, he said he was frightened to go home in case he found his wife dead. Fearing that she had committed euicide, he elepb that night with a rabbiter, and wont to his home the following day (Sunday). He reported that nighb to a neighbour that bis wife was missing, and next morning at eight o'clock a miner named McGoggan observed in the river the clothes afterwards identified as tha?e of Mrs Matson.

A rabbiter named Blen found the body on Saturday afternoon. It was enclosed in two sacks. The legs were doubled up at the btick and tied, one sack being pulled over the lower extremities, and the other o>er the head. ' The sacks had -been weighted with stones. The constant rub bing on the bottom of the river wore a hole in the sack and the stones dropped oub and the body floated. Mrs Matson's children, by a previous husband, are in bhe Industrial School.