BODY IN CREEK

Evening Star, Issue 22033, 20 May 1935, Page 8

BODY IN CREEK

ARGYLL MURDER GASE TRIAL OF PRICE BEGINS

United Press Association.]

NAPIER, May 20. The trial of Charles Edward Price, alias Edwards, on a charge of murdering Evelyn Mary Madden, a domestic servant, whose battered body was discovered on February 14 last in a creek at a lonely spot near Argyll East, Waipawa, was commenced before Mr Justice Blair in the Supreme Court this morning. The hearing is expected to last the whole of the present week. The cage for the Crown is being conducted by Mr H. B. Lusk (Crown prosecutor) assisted by Mr L. W. Willis, while the accused, who is described as a farm teamster, aged 42, is represented by Mr S. Averill. While visiting an eel trap which he had set in a creek near his home, a young farm hand discovered the body of Miss Madden in a hole beneath a willow tree overhanging a bank. Two days later the police, when carrying out investigations in the vicinity detained a man seen ' walking about nearby 1 . It is alleged by the police that the accused and Miss Madden were driven by.a taxi driver from Hastings to a ploughman’s camp, near the Taheke station at Argyll, where they left the car, and set out on a track leading over a- hill, the accused Stating that he was taking Miss Madden to the home of settlers named Hollis. Nearly an hour and a-half later the accused is alleged to have returned alone to the car, which then returned to Hastings. The police further allege that just before the woman’s disappearance Price and Miss Madden had been staying at an hotel at Hastings, and that following the journey to Argyll Price took possession of two portmanteaux owned .by Miss Madden, which he had deposited at the labour bureau at Hastings. According to the police story Price is stated to have told the taxi driver on the return journey from Argyll that he had £3B, which Miss Madden had given him.