BUSH MYSTERY

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 116, 20 May 1925, Page 9

BUSH MYSTERY

AUSTRALIAN GRAZIERS

DEATH

MISSING FOR FOUR MONTHS

BODY FOUND IN LAGOON.

(WOll ODB OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

SYDNEY, 15th May.

In part, the mysterious 'disappearance of an elderly grazier of Balranald (New South Wales) has been solved by the finding of his body in a lagoon three miles from that town four months after he was last seen. . But how. he came to be drowned has still to be explained. This part of the mystery might never be solved. Police investigations are now proceeding with a view to discovering whether the grazier met his end through sheer misadventure or by foul play. ■• . : ,' . Towards the end of January,'the police announced that Thomas Granger Thomson, a grazier, aged 54 years, had been missing from his home near Balranald. for three weeks.. With his son-in-law (Mr. A. A. Simpson), Mr. Thomson went to Melbourne on 6th January .to. negotiate for the''purchase of 700Q acres, of land lying between his own property and Mr. Simpson's. The business was concluded the following .day, Mr. Thomson having paid a deposit and arranged for terms, and the, two men left Melbourne for Bendigo that night. At Bendigb they parted, Mr. Thomson going i by train to Swan Hill, and Mr. Simpson remaining at Bendigo.. From Swan Hill Mr. Thomson went by the mail motorcar to Balranald, which, on the border of New South Wales and Victoria, Mr. Thomson reached about 10 o'clock on the night of Bth- January. People who saw him on the coach stated that he seemed rather abstracted and • silent. on the trip. He was seen to leave the coach in the town and walk up the road, in the direction of the hotel at which he usually stayed. From that hour until last Sunday afternoon no one had been known to see Mr. Thomson. On that day, a party of three aboriginals found Mr. Thomson's body on tho edge of a lagoon,, near the Murrumbidgee River.-about three miles from BalranaUl. The body was lying face downwards, near the edge of the water, having evidently floated to the side of the lagoon, and as the water receded the body became exposed. The body was much decomposed. Search parties worked this neighbourhood when Mr. Thomson was first reported missing, but at that time the whole of the country round lagoon'was under'-water.' This, drying up, has partly solved the mystery, but in doing so has only .deepened it. There was apparently no reason why Mr.. Thomson should take his own life, and efforts are now being devoted to discover if his death was the result of an attack. - . ' .. A STRANGE SEQUEL. The mystery has a strange sequel. In Melbourne, theTe is a well-known for-tune-teller, Madame Ghurka, who claims f to have brought to the scaffold the in-, famous Gun Alley murderer, Colin Ross, by relating to the police a "vision' sbo had of the committal of that crime..Mr. Thomson's -relatives had apparently consulted Madame Ghurka in their efforts to trace the missing man, and had used her reports as a spur to further search. It is now reported that Madame Ghurka, in the middle of last month, informed the relatives that Mr. Thomson's skeleton would be found "at tho hill and downstream six miles." This description fitted the place where the body was actually found. Madame now declares that Mr. Thomson was murdered' by a man, who knew his habits, for the purposes of robbery - That part of her prophecy might never be proved correct or otherwise.