LABOURER COMMITTED FOR TRIAL

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 194, 14 May 1936, Page 9

LABOURER COMMITTED FOR TRIAL

Australian Murder Charge (Received May 13, 8.25 p.m.) Sydney, May 13. The coroner at Kiama held an inquiry into the death of Charles Dawson, aged 47, whose body was discovered in a sandpit near Lake Illawarra, after which he committed Francis Maudlin, aged 27, labourer, for trial on a charge of murder. Detective-Sergeant Mcßae gave evidence that when Maudlin was arrested he made a statement alleging that he shot Dawson in self-defence with a revolver as Dawson was about to shoot him with his own pea-rifle. McRae added that Maudlin afterward altered his statement, saying that he shot Dawson with the latter’s pearille when he himself was threatened with a sheaf knife which Dawson possessed. . A local storekeeper gave evidence of having sold a box of pea-rifle bullets to Maudlin on April 30.

A cable dated May 6 stated that the body of a man, identified as Charles Dawson, formerly a tram driver, was found secreted in a disused shallow well close to Lake Illawarra, on the South Coast. Dawson had been shot iu the temple and there was a bag over his head, fastened around hie neck with a rope. He lived alone in a one-roomed building and received a pension, but it is known that he posed as a man of means. The police discovered a trail of blood from the hut to the spot where he was buried.