STOLEN BOY MYSTERY

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 September 1927, Page 4

STOLEN BOY MYSTERY

FOUND IN A CELLAR. i Mystery attaches to the disappearance and discovery of a three-year-old Birmingham boy, William Homer, who was found a cellar at a timber yard within a few paces of his home, after having been missed for two days. He disappeared after ho had been seen in a local park, and a close police search had failed to yield any trace of him. Then little girls at play heard cries from the timber yard and called the attention of the caretaker to them. He found the boy lying in a narrow space high up on the top of some laths in a position he could not possibly have reached unaided. He was unhurt except for a scratched face.

The boy’s first words to his mother were:. “I have been to sleep.” Afterwards, his explanation indicated that a man took him into the meat market and hit him with a whip, but later gave him a banana. It is known that the boy is very fond of following drovers with herds of cattle. There is no way into the yard except ovei’ a gate about 12 feet high. The boy was well nourished, and a doctor said that he had been fed recently. Workmen were in the timber yard until 6 pan., but the gates were closed early in the afternoon. It is surmised that the boy may have been kidnapped and put into the cellar when the hue and cry became too intense.