WANTED FOR MURDER

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 April 1925, Page 5

WANTED FOR MURDER

iy missing Motorist accused. YtpNG LOVERS’ STORY (Per Fresh Association ) ’' Im -I« / OAMARtJ,' 'April 27. The post mortem examination on the. body. 6f Olive Rutherford was completed at a late hour last night. The examining doctors, refused to give any information, in view of their evidence being required later at the inqriest, but it pvas learned that a bullet had been ‘found at the base of the’Skull and that the other injuries were not sufficient in themselves to cause death. %

A' warrant was issued by th e Kurow Bench to-day charging Philip Richard Hudson,- University student, with murdering Olive Jean Rutherford. f . The search was continued to-day but no trace of Hudson was found. It is still believed that he has been drowned in the»Waitaki River, though it is quite possible that he swam the -river, and got into; the hill country on the other side. As he was without food, he could not survive for many days. Olive Rutherford, IS years, and Philip Hudson, 19 years, had been keeping' company for four years, and were’formally ,engaged, with, the full approval of the parents,' They had been away together on several previous occasions'. Miss Rutherford, on the day preceding the accident, hgd a difference with her mother concerning ’certain details of the former’s eipployment. It is understood .that the girl left home on Tuesday morning, taking a dress basket ,and did not go to work. It., is believed that, a room was taken in a Dunedin hotel, and the dress basket left there, Mrs. Rutherford did not see her daughter up to the time of the accident. Consent was given to Hudson by his parents to.use the car about 6.30 on Tuesday evening. Hudson was a careful and, experienced driver. There is no official information as to the time the pair left Dunedin, nor their movements up to the time of the accident.

Approaching the scene of.the accident, the country ia very desolate. Nine miles above iSurow is Wharekur.i, with the’road .pacing precipitous cliffs. The place where the car left the road is hardly one to expect an accident to happen. A .gradual slope leads from the road about 1 103 yards, and terminates in a steep qliff with a drop of 150 feet. The car apparently was not under control. It did not follow the. natural slope of the grcundi but.kept to the right of the shallow gully.. The marks show that the car just missed an iron telegraph pole on its way.- It. was first thought, ovying to some plainer marks that the brakes had been applied nearing the cliff, but this theory has not been verified by the police. Apparently moving at a fair speed the car dashed over the top striking the cliff at a point fifty feet below with the radiatoi/, then turning a ■somersault, and continuing another thirty feet, where it struck earth again, and finally came to rest twenty-five feet below. was upturned and wrecked beyond recognition. ' TliO car in which the couple travelled was a. two-seater Austin, with a dickey seat at the back. Portions .of the car were distributed over a wide area.'The impact was so severe that it smashed the car to atoms. The spare wheel -.on the rear of the car was all that escaped damage. Mr, ‘Condon, a resident of Kurow, wheff’ passing along the road , at 7.10 a.nU bn , Wednesday, . saw the car pulled up Off the side of the road, near where the accident subsequently happened and ascertained! from Hudson waving his hand that all was well. A shepherd who passed on a horse at 7,30 a.m. in a heavy fog noticed' a disturbance of nietal on the road where the cpr had left. it. He went further up the road and on returning, investigated.' Looking over the cliff, he saw the remains of the car and. a body lying on ,ai ledge twenty-five feet down. Dr. Matheson, of Whar.ek'uri, whs communicated with, arid, assisted by his wife, dressed tjie wounds and conveyed the girl to the Kurow Hotel. The police on Wednesday found Hudson’s watch" which had stopped at 7.25 f ’beside the body of -the girl; also a hat, glove, and a man’s handkerchief soaked with, blood. A man’s hat was found nearby with a hole in tlie top. An : empty cartridge was found beside Olive Rutherford, and another near the wrecked car. Empty chocolate boxes and broken lemonade bottles were also found. ' x The bloodstains led from the body of the,, girl down the side of the hili past the debris of the car, and on again over the stones to the lyater’s edge. The stains were not extensive; but sufficient to show dhe direction in which Hudson went.