BEACH TRAGEDY

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 September 1927, Page 7

BEACH TRAGEDY

END OF REAL LIFE DRAMA. (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) LONDON, Sept. 9. A dramatic solution of the mystery of the Bournemouth Sands is revealed by the “Daily Express.” It is recalled that Arthur Pank, aged thirty-six a man of fine physique and of good character, was sentenced to death at Old Bailey in 1919, for the murder of his sister-in-law, after a fruitless plea of insanity. Pank, at the trial, declared that while they were in a house alone, the woman made a suggestion which so angered him that he shot her, in order to save his brother’s honour. For some unexplained reason, Pank was not hanged. His sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life; but he was released last May, after serving only eight years. Pank went to South London to live with his brother, who in the meantime had remarried. Pank, on August 28, left the house on a supposed holiday. Two days later a man walking on the beach at Bournemouth saw a body dressed in a bathing suit floating in the sea. The police failed to trace its identity. An inquest was held on a man unknown, and a verdict of “found drowned” was returned. Then, when it seemed inevitable that he would be buried in a nameless pauper’s grave, a laundry mark clue led to the communication with his brother, who journeyed to Bournemouth, and recognised the face as that of the man who had committed murder to save his honour.