DRAMATIC TURN

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 123, 18 February 1935, Page 10

DRAMATIC TURN

Finding of Young Woman’s Body POLICE MAKE ARREST \ Girl Identified by Former Employer By Telegraph.—Press Association. •Hastings, February 17. Tiie Taheke mystery came to an unexpected and swift climax on Saturday afternoon when, as a sequel to police investigations into the finding of the dead body of a then unidentified woman, a man named Charles William Edwards was detained, and late on Saturday night was formally arrested and charged with the murder of the woman, who now is known to be Eva Madden, a domestic. Edwards will appear at the Napier Magistrate’s Court to-mor-row morning. He is a farm teamster. 39 years of age. The victim of the tragedy was 20 years old. It is believed she was formerly of Wellington and has no relatives in New Zealand. It became apparent from the first examination of the body that the police were .confronted with the problem of solving a fatal assault, and it is known that the detective force engaged in the .'preliminary investigations were by no means hopeful of a speedy solution of the affair. In the first place they were at a loss to know how the woman came to be in such a remote part of the country, and also they were faced with the fact that no Hawke’s Bay police station had reports of any missing woman ■ It seemed as though the identification alone would be a considerable problem. Then events took a sudden turn. From some detailed description of the victim’s appearance and clothing a Hastings resident who had employed her came to the police with an offer to examine the body to see whether it was the same woman, as she felt it was. Then Mr. J. N. Lowry, at whose farm both the deceased and Edwards had been employed at the same time, came into the investigations and quickly established -the identity of the girl sis Miss Madden.

The first step in the investigations was the examination of the body in the situation by Detective Farquharson, Plain clothes Constable Dunne and Dr. R Cashmore, of Hastings.' The body was then brought into Hastings, where it has now, been preserved to facilitate further examination. Within an hour or two Detective-Ser-geant Bickerdike and Detective Coddington of Napier, joined in the investigation, and acting on information received from the Hastings resident who had employed the deceased woman, they went to Tikokino to detain Ed: wards who was subsequently taken to the scene of the discovery and later brought to Hastings.

A post-mortem examination bv Dr. Cashmore and Dr. A. B. ,S. Whyte showed that the woman had received' certain severe injuries. It was revealed also that her clothing had been disarranged, apparently before her death. A young man named Monk who discovered the body at a very late hour on Thursday night was walking along a creek' which runs through Taheke Settlement, it being his intention to go on an eeling expedition. He had reached a point almost opposite the junction of two' roads when he saw the body. It was in a partly hidden spot about a hundred yards from the road and might have lain hidden there until the winter rains came and swelled the waters in the creek and carried the body away.