BODY IN RIVER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 238, 7 October 1936, Page 12

BODY IN RIVER.

MURDER ALLEGED. LONG SEARCH FOR GIRL N.S.W.'S UNSOLVED CRIMES (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, October 2. The Is.S.W. police have a long list of unsolved mysteries on their hands, ■ and one of the cases which is just now engrossing much of their attention is the death of Ruby King. The story, so far as the facts are known, is brief and easy to follow. Ruby King was a girl of 22, good looking and well behaved, who lived in Dubbo° in service with the family of Mr. E. Weston, one of the local storekeepers. Her mother had been dead some years, but her father lived on a small holding about 12 miles away, and between Ruby and him there was deep affection. The girl was usually most cheerful, but a few weeks back her friends noticed that she seemed anxious and worried, and sometimes appeared to have been weeping. On the evening of August 20 she did her usual domestic work, took off her apron, and about 7 o'clock went out, saying that she would be back in a few minutes. She had wrapped a tweed coat around her, bu she did not even trouble to put on a hat, and her manner suggested that she had no intention of being away long. She went out of the door and turned up the road in the direction of Dubbo township. That was the last time that she was known to have been seen alive.

Early on the morning of August 27 it was discovered that Ruby had not come back to her mother's home, and that she had not slept in her bed. Her father was told of her disappearance, and he and her friends now frantic with anxiety,'made inquiries in the town and throughout the surrounding district, hut they could not locate any one who would admit having seen or spoken with the girl. Her boy friend was as much at a loss as everybody else, and the police, after they were called in, followed large numbers of clues to no purpose. Several rumours purporting to describe girls like the missing Ruby who had been seen in the neighbourhood' came to nothing. Black Tracker's Find. The pdlice suggested a possible lapse of memory—Ruby had met with an accident in childhood which had rendered her unconscious for some days. The girl's father believed that she had been kidnapped and taken out of the district, hut he clung to the belief that she was still alive. Then, as after a fortnight's energetic search there was still no news, the police fell back upon the theory of murder. They scoured the country, even turned over the local cemetery, searched the banks of the Macquarie River, and finally dragged the bed. At last on September 13 a black tracker who had been employed to help the police saw a body entangled in the branches of a tree below the surface of the river. The body was brought to land, it was identified as Ruby Green, and a medical examination proved' that the girl was dead when she was thrown into the river.'

Of course, the finding of the body gave no j>recise indicaton of the cause of death or of the identity of anyone responsible ior it. • During the past week, however, the story has'- had a sensational sequel. The police have arrested a married woman named Inez Clarke, 44 years old, wife of a railway engine-driver, who has lived at Diibbo for .many years; and charged her with the murder of Ruby Green. She was remanded, hut though her lawyer made a strong appeal for her a-s a well-known and thoroughly respectable woman, and asserted that the eharge t was pimply guess work on the part of .the police, bail was refused. Inspector Armstrong, who has 'charge of the case, spoke in a, manner whicli at least suggested that the police are ; sure of their ground, and further remarkable developments are expected when the invest is held on October 6.

The case of Ruby Green has imposed a further responsibility upon the ] Criminal Investigation Bureau, which ' has already too much work of this kind ] on hand. One ot its most pressing 1 duties just now is the investigation of the murder of William leavers, tho returned soldier who was presumably murdered at his garage on the ForbesGrenfell Road on September 5. Lavers disappeared from his home'within half an hour of getting up to attend to his business, and a blood-stained pump handle, apparently indicated violence and probably murder. Vain Search for Body. But in spite of the strenuous efforts on the part of ; the police and the vigorous co-operation' of hundreds of settlers and farmers throughout the district, nothing has yet been learned definitely of the fate of the missing man. Forests have been combed, deserted mine shafts searched, rivers and creeks- dragged, and a fortnight ago about 600 searchers spent the week-end in. "going through" the whole countryside with meticulous care. So far, however, nothing of substantial material value has been discovered to aid in solving the mystery. At first the police paid a great deal of attention to the movements of cars throughout the Forbes-Grenfell area. For Lavers' assailants apparently came to his garage in a car, and the same means must have been used to transport the body to its last resting place Two separate cars were traced a long way, and much was expected from their identification, but both these clues ultimately broke down, and the discovery of a stick which had been used to measure the depth of petrol in a motor tank, and was stained with blood, also proved fruitless. The police have fallen back on the expedient normally employed in such cases, and haye offered rewards for any mformation leading to the discovery of Lavers body or the arrest of his murderers. These rewards, subsidised by the Governmen and increased by £200 subscribed by the settlers in the district,'amount now to £700, and should certainly lead to some tangible result before long. But after a month's searih the admit that they are in this case as far on from finality as ever, and the Lavercase still remains on the long list o our undetected crimes. Unsolved Killings. That list is at once imposing and depressing, for it reminds us that even if our police force and our .detectives are as efficient as their admirers claim they have during the last five years failed conspicuously in their attempts to bring to justice the perpetrators of a number of peculiarly outrageous crimes. Victor Saywell, a wealthy solicitor, was battered to death one night in. his beautiful home on Bellevue Hill; Mrs. Dorothy i Thorn; daughter of another wealthy i family, was poisoned with strychnine'

by some unknown encmv in her home at Mosman; Jack Keane, a wealthy bookmaker, was shot early one morning at Mascot by gunmen who had apparently decoyed, him into a house for the purpose; Jules Buesy, a young Italian, trying to intercept a tliief, .was struck on the head and died almost at once, his assailant escaping undetected; Jack Nicholson, a Greek restaurant keeper in Elizabeth Street, was murdered in his room by someone evidently resentful o/ his gallantries and romantic intrigues; Mrs. Wills and Luigi Origlea, well-known residents in the Forbes district, were both shot dead while driving home across the Forbes bridge. Perhaps the strangest find most pathetic figure in this long list is '"the Albury pyjama girl," the poor creature who was found, clad in night attire, partially burned, in a cUlvert. near the Victorian border, whose body, preserved by the skill of science, still awaits identification at Sydney University. The body -was found in September, 1934. but not even an inquest has yet been held, and though the police archives include thousands of letters and other documents bearing on this case received from almost every country in the world, the identity of" the victim still remains undecided. There are rewards of £500 and £200 awaiting any claimant who can give the police any valuable information, and, curiously enough, these rewards have just been extended for another three months. But past experience does not supply much hope that the mystery of the Albury pyjama girl is yet near solution.