BORDERED DETECTIVES

Evening Star, Issue 19290, 1 July 1926, Page 1

BORDERED DETECTIVES

THE PERTH TRAGEDY EVIDENCE AT INQUEST Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. Australian and N.Z. Press Association. PERTH, July 1, (Received July 1, at 10.45 a.m.) At the inquest in connection with the deaths of Detectives Walsh and Pitman, Detective-sergeant Manning gave evidence that Evan Clarke, one of those held on a charge of murder, had made two statements, the second of which resulted in Coulter’s arrest. On the strength of the other statement he and other detectives found near the Boulder racecourse some earth which contained congealed blood, which ■ Clarke said had been put there by - Coulter after it had been removed from the bush in his (Clarke’s) car. Detective-sergeant Manning saidthat about fifty paces from the goldtreating plant, where it is alleged the detectives were killed, a shot was found, from which some earth had been 'removed.. The inquest was adjourned.

[The discovery of-the bodies of De-tective-inspector Walsh and Sergeant Pitman in on abandoned mine shaft on May 13, revealed a murder unparallelied in the history of the Western Australian goldfields. They had left Perth on April 28 to make investigations some miles from Kalgoorlie in connection with thefts of gold, and nothing was heard of them until the police received information which ied them to search a disused mine shaft near the Conlgnrdic mad. Ac the, bottom of the shaft, w.nieh is 60ft deep, the mutilated bodies of the missing detectives were found. The heads- of both bodies were sa.wn off, and the legs were sawn off below the knees. The trunks were also sawn in half. The bodies were charred. Evidently the murderers had the various parts in a t furnace in an endeavor to destroy evidences of their crime. Apparently the murder was committed a distance away from the mine, and the bodies were conveyed to it in a cart., the fresh tracks of which led up m and away from tho mine. At the holitrvm of the shaft, covering the undies, were found fire bricks, gold scales, fire bars, long,s a furnace used for smelting ore, and several other ' pails of illiict gold treatment plant,]