ARREST MADE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 56, 7 March 1944, Page 5

ARREST MADE

"PYJAMA GIRL" CASE

Victim Identified As Wife Of

Italian Waiter

N.Z. Press Association—Copyright Rec. 9.30 a.m. SYDNEY, this day. A case which achieved world-wide fame in the annals of crime, known as the "pyjama girl" case, was revived yesterday with the arrest in Melbourne of an Italian on the charge of murder. For ten years Victorian and New South Wales police have been trying to solve the mystery of the death of the woman whose burned and battered body was found under a culvert on the road near Albury, on the border of New South Wales and Victoria.

Inquiries were made in 37 countries and failed to identify the victim, until Saturday last when the police in Sydney learned that she was known as Linda Piatt, a native of England, who came to Australia from New Zealand, arriving in Melbourne in 1933. She disappeared in the following year. The police now say the victim has been identified as Mrs. Linda Agostini, who married an Italian, Antonio Agostini (43), a waiter. Agostini was detained in Sydney on Saturday and brought to Melbourne, where he was charged yesterday with murder.

Body of Victim Preserved

Since the discovery of the crime on September 1, 1934, the body of the victim has been preserved in a formalin bath, while the unremitting search to establish identity proceeded by means of fingerprints, photographs and reconstructed models. The police say that some dental work by a Sydney dentist gave a clue to the eventual discovery of identity.

Co-operation between the Victorian and New South Wales police was arranged and parties of detectives with the .detained man. and the. body of the victim met at Albury on Sunday morning and visited the scene of the crime. Later the police came to Melbourne, where visits were made to a house in Carlton, where the woman last lived in Melbourne. Enormous File Built Up Despite early failures of identification, periodic reviews of the case were made by the police. A-file of immense proportions was built up at police headquarters relating to world-wide inquiries, including numerous suggestions made to the police by people who believed they had a solution, but the last phase of the famous inquiry did not begin until seven weeks ago.

Mrs. Agostini was formerly employed as a hairdresser on the Aorangi and later as an usher at The Sydney Theatre two from 1927. She married Agostini at a Sydney registry office in 1930, afterwards coming to Melbourne with him. She was 28 at the time of her death.

Agostini was working as a waiter in Sydney when he was arrested. During the early years of the investigation rewards up to £1000 were offered by the New South Wales Government for information leading to the identification, and some extraordinary results ensued. Many people sought to identify the body in its formalin bath. A few years ago a Sydney woman claimed the victim was her daughter and unsuccessfully brought legal action for custody of the body.

" Confession " Made

An Adelaide man made what he called a confession of the crime, saying he strangled the woman. The first few months of the inquiry led to the tracing of 720 missing girls in Australia and various parts of the world.