BODY IN SCRUB

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 107, 8 May 1941, Page 5

BODY IN SCRUB

UNIDENTIFIED MAN

WHY WAS OLD PASS KEPT?

(0.C.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day. Why a man should for three years preserve a pass-out check from a city theatre, unless it was the only memento of some sentimental occasion, is one of the questions being considered by the police as they Try to ascertain the identity of the man who died in the scrub near Bottle Lake at least two years apo. A fire that recently swept through the gorse and broom on the .sandhills near Bottle Lake disclosed the remains, which were found by Eric Morace Mugford, on a shooting expedition. Although charred by the fire, some clothing was still wrapped round the bones. The skeleton was clad in a navy blue suit and van ■ shoes. Of the four coins in the I pockets the latest bore the dale of j 1935; and, as coins rarely pet inio jcirculaticn until a year after they [are minted, the man was probably I alive in 1939. Yet, in a tin contain- | ing decomposed tobacco, the police : found a pass-out check from u city theatre bearing on the hark u:\ I advertisement published in 1935. j The skeleton showed no ?igr- of 'injury. It has been submitted to Dr. ,A. B. Pearson, pathologist ; : t the j Christchurch Public Hospital, for examination, while the police are j still seeking some clue to the iden:ny !of the dead man.