UNCONSCIOUS GIRL.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 307, 28 December 1929, Page 3 (Supplement)

UNCONSCIOUS GIRL.

FIANCE'S PREMONITION OF GRAVEYARD ATTACK. ACCUSED MAN'S RETORT. Miss Alice Williams, a 27-year-old Walsall school teacher, was found unconscious in Rushall Churchyard after being mysteriously attacked. "Her mind is a complete blank," it was stated at Walsall District Hospital, "She is in a serious condition, and no one has been allowed to see her." Miss Williams was discovered in Rushall Churchyard by her fiance and some choristers from the church. She had a serious wound ithe head and was in a semifrozen condition. In connection with the attack, Frederick Leonard Jones, 24, a labourer, of Rushall, was remanded in custody at Rushall, on a charge of attempting to murder Miss Williams. A police officer said that Jones, when charged, said, "There is nothing to say, only that I know nothing about it. Strike! Murder! What next? Coming to capital now. I have notthing else to say as far as I know." The officer alleged that the studding on Jones' shoes corresponded with footmarks in the churchyard. Mr. Clifford Cresswell, Miss Williams' fiance, said that he became alarmed when she failed to keep an appointment with him. "I knew she had gone to the churchyard to lay some flowers on a grave, and I hastened there. On the grave I found her handbag half-opened. With the help of some choristers, I searched the churchyard with the aid of a flashlight, and

found my sweetheart lying at the back of the church about 20 yards from the grave. She was in a dazed state and her hair was matted with blood. She gt-oaned when we lifted her to take her into the vestry. A doctor took her in his car to the Walsall Hospital." Miss Williams received her teacher's salary on the afternoon before she went to the churchyard, and more than £9 were found in an inner pocket of her bag. "As far as I knew, she had no enemies," added her fiance.