Inquiries Continued In Payroll Bandit Search

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28553, 5 April 1958, Page 12

Inquiries Continued In Payroll Bandit Search

(From Our Own Reporter)

TIMARU, April 4. Widespread inquiries were continued in the Timaru and other police districts this morning in the search for the armed bandit who has eluded capture since the time of his daring daylight robbery on Wednesday. A payroll of £9177 was stolen from the local manager, of the . Canterbury Frozen Meat Company, Ltd. (Mr W. S. Minehan), by a man in a stolen car who held up Mr Minehan at shotgun-point a mile from the Pareora freezing works about 11 a.m. on Wednesday.

Since the stolen car was found in a river bed near Cave on Wednesday afternoon an intensive man-hunt has been staged in the area. Eight members of the C. 1.8. including men from Christchurch, Oamaru, and Dunedin were in the Caver and Pleasant Point district today with 20 men of the uniformed branch from Timaru. Search parties combed the area, but had achieved no final result late tonight. Inspector J. J. Halcrow of Christchurch, relieving police officer in charge at Timaru, said today that routine inquiries for the wanted man, who now possesses both a shotgun and the revolver he stole from Mr Minehan, had been instituted throughout the Dominion. There had been no new reports of cars being stolen in his area since the robbery, 4ie said. Persons had been interviewed in many places in the South Island and large numbers of statements had been taken. Inspector Halcrow confirmed the rumour that a number of persons had reported seeing a black car waiting near the scene of

the robbery on Wednesday morning; but he added that nothing definite had been established regarding either the exact time it had been seen or its possible connexion with the robbery. He said it was difficult to say at this point whether or not the bandit had accomplices in his venture. - The police were following several leads wl\ich might be of some assistance, but it was too early yet to indicate their fruitfulness, Inspector Halcrow said.