FATAL PICNIC

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 58, 6 September 1937, Page 10

FATAL PICNIC

«. a CAPSIZE OF BOAT COUPLE FOUND DROWNED (From "The Post's" Representative.) SYDNEY, August 13. The body of Miss Mary St George, 52, waitress at one of Sydney's bestknown restaurants, was recovered from I the Audley River, National Park, in! circumstances which indicated that she had been accidentally drowned. The body of Victor Millett, 60, was found with Miss St. George's, and it is almost certain that he lost his life in trying to save her after she had fallen from their rowing-boat. ■'..•• When the woman left her home on August 1, stating that she was going for a picnic, and did not return or appear at the restaurant, police formed the theory that she had been murdered. For several days, including all last weekend, posses *of police intensively searched scrub at popular picnic resorts. It was "not until Tuesday afternoon' that the mystery ended. On the day following Miss St. George's disappearance, the proprietor of,a boatshed at Audley found, upturned on the river, a boat which he had hired out to a man and a woman. He informed the police last Tuesday that he had not attached any significance to the discovery at the time, as picnic parties frequently left the boats they had hired from him on the banks of the river. ' When Detective Walks, who had been investigating the. disappearance of Miss St George, heard of the disco.very of the upturned boat he went to National Park. The proprietor of a refreshment booth in the park told him that he remembered Miss St. George, whom he knew, calling at his booth on August 1 The police decided to drag the river, and late in the afternoon, the grappling irons brought to the surface a rug and a suitcase. Shortly afterwards the police drew up Millett s body. Miss St. George's body was clasped in his arms. In a report to his chief, Detective Wilks stated that in his opinion, and that of the other detectives, the couple had their meal on the bank of the river The picnic utensils in the suitcase showed this. After the meal, Miss St. George had probably entered the boat, which capsized when Millett thrust it from the bank with an oar, and the piir had accidentally been drowned. The position of the bodies locked together, indicated that Millett had attempted to rescue Miss St. George, and that . both had sunk in de inv«tige ation . into^ the tragedy showed that Miss St. George had kept secret for fifteen years a close friendship with Millett, a married man. Her brother, with whom she lived, knew that she had regularly met near her home a man friend, but she had always declined to bring him to the house. Millett was a barman at a suburban hotel.