THE TRAIN MURDERS

Evening Post, Issue 82, 6 April 1936, Page 9

THE TRAIN MURDERS

LONG POLICE CHASE

SUITCASE SEIZED

United Pres3. Association—By Electric TolC'

graph—Copyright. .

SYDNEY, April 3,

The police forces of Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria, using fast cars; aeroplanes, and long-distance telephones, have been following the movements of a suspect since the murders committed on the Queensland mail train on April 2. The police organisation was always a few hours behind the suspect as the latter fled south. They had a report of a man leaving the train in which the murder was committed shortly before it reached Brisbane,' then of a man who left bloodstained money in a taxi.

Passengers in various trains and buses were carefully checked until today the Melbourne police arrested a man who is alleged to have made a statement. Police at Sydney later seized a small suitcase which, it is alleged, was the property of one of the murdered men.

One of the most ghastly crimes in the history of Queensland was revealed on Thursday on the arrival of the mail train at Brisbane from Rockhampton, when it was found that two men had been battered to death in sleeping berths, and that the train conductor was badly injured. The two dead were Mr. H-. J. Speering, an engineer in the Postal Department, and Mr. M. F. Costello, business man, Innisfail. Gold from the Cracow mines worth £20,000 was carried in a compartment at the other end of the carriage in which Messrs. Speering and Costello were killed. It was suggested that the murderers might have intended to capture the gold but had mistaken the compartment in which it was lodged.