MAIL TRAIN MURDER

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21773, 4 May 1936, Page 11

MAIL TRAIN MURDER

♦ KOPET COMMITTED FOR TRIAL BRISBANE, May 1. Herbert Kopet, otherwise Colbert, a labourer, aged 28, charged with murdering Edward Speering and M. F. Costello, and with attempting to kill Thomas Boys, the conductor on the Rockhampton-Brisbane mail train on April 2, was committed for trial on June 22 on the first charge. To-day's evidence related to Kopet's movements after his arrival at Brisbane from Sydney. A tyre lever, with which the murders were allegedly committed, was identified by Brindley Rees, who left a truck outside Gympie station. Clothing and a hat found in Kopet's possession were identified by Mrs Speering as the property of her murdered husband. Aubrey Boorn, a taxi-driver, gave evidence that he drove Kopet from Brisbane to Coolangatta on April 2, which statement coincided with Kopet's to the detectives. Boys, the mail train conductor, will not give evidence at the trial. Although Boys left the hospital yesterday restored to physical strength, he has lost his memory. He cannot recall the happenings in the train and thinks that he was involved in an accident. An X-ray photograph disclosed a piece of bone pressing on the brain, but the doctors decided not to operate as they feared that there might result a mental reaction causing a worse condition than the existing one. _______________