BY ROADSIDE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 213, 8 September 1928, Page 3 (Supplement)

BY ROADSIDE.

GIRL'S BODY HIDDEN IN BRACKEN AFTER OPERATION. The grim secrets which enshroud the fate of many girls who have been led to entrust their lives to the hands of illegal practitioners were added to last year by the mystery of the death of Eileen Clarke, a pretty Melbourne waitress. Miss ( larkc. an auburn-haired, attractive woman of 25. left her home at Geelong to work at a cit.y restaurant. Her quiet manner and willingness made her a favourite with her employer and fellow employees. She lived in apartments at Middle Park. On Tuesday. January 11. she went ofT duty at 6..H0 ji.tn. She was due back at 1.30 p.m. the following day. At mid-day on this day the proprietress received a telephone message. A voice, v hieh she took to l>e that of a woman, stated that Miss Clarke would not be able to go to work that day.

On the following Thursday a little boy, living on the Point Xepean Road, Mornington, glimpsed through the bracken at the side of the road the form of a woman lying in the grass. Thoroughly scared, he rushed to his home and told liis parents, but his account in his excitement was so incoherent that they paid little attentiun to him. Later in the day, however, a breadcarter passing saw the body, and the police were informed. Story of Car. The face blackened by exposure to the sun, the corpse proved to be that of the unfortunate missing girl. Her remains had been dragged through a hole in the wall of bracken, and thrust acainst a fence. Death, it was found, had been due to an illegal operation. Investigating the mystery, the police were told by a student of a car which had driven up to the bracken slowlv, stopped tor a time, and then had been driven swiftly away. Acting on a clue given by a card that came into their possession, the police til rested a !Nii'"se ( haniberlain, who kei>t a midwifery establishment at Abbot.vrY.nl. i. he was held ou a charge of having murdered the girl. -The police also succeeded in location ;i man who was said to have beeu keepiu" company with the dead girl. There was a dramatic scene at the inquest when this man. who gave his name as Leslie Lyons, appeared to give evidence I he mother, who, wifch another daughter", nad come from Geelong to give evidence, cried out "'i on dirty mongrel." She was quickly silenced by a court official. Tn his evidencej Lyons, who had previously given his name Smith, said hat he knew- the deceased. A ring, with the letters 'L to which was found on her finger, lie said, had beeu given to nor by him. be™ to her rooms at Middle lark on two occasions, but had never bee,, farther than the threshold. He 'tv' 1 h;ul b( ' rn to her rooms two or throe times a v eek. He admitted that his initials appeared on a card bearing the words. "Admitted '."/"Pital. Nurse Chamberlain, !-.»tcied midwife. Abbotsford."'

Nurse Chamberlain, in l,er evidence domed hat she had ever seen the gM and declared that she had nothing whate\ cr to do with the card produced The coroner found that there was insufficient evidence to prove bv whose hands Miss Uarke had come to her death He returned a verdict of death from shock Sfe" opc, '""" i l ' v 6 ° me