BURWOOD MURDER.

Grey River Argus, 21 June 1927, Page 5

BURWOOD MURDER.

A NEW THEORY. Murdered in Darkness. (Per Press Assn.) CHRISTCHURCH, June 20. The only fact brought to light today concerning the murder of Gwendoline Scarff at Burwood was that the scene of the murder..was in full view of two of the telegraph linesm.cn who were working on polos nearby for the whole of Tuesday morning. This new fact, combined with the fadt that the nearest neighbour heard no screams, is fairly conclusive evidence that the murder did not take place in the daylight. Owing to rigor mortis not having set in when the body was found, it was assumed that the girl had been done to death only an hour or two before. The possibility is that the girl was left by her assailant, not dead, but. dying, and that her death occurred some time after the attack. The police, it is Undnrstood 4 arc working on this theory. THE SCENE. CLUES UNAVAILING. CHRISTCHURCH, June 20. 'Mystery st ill surrounds the Burwood murder. Many clues have been followed, but not one promises to give the desired result. There is reason to believe that while at the Federal Hotel the girl was not well supplied with money, and that she only paid her bill on Tuesday after receiving assistance from someone. The scene where the girl Scarff was murdered is about 25 yards of the Lake Terraco road and about 100 yards from the Burwood tea rooms, occupied by Mrs King. Actually it is on an unformed road, which separates land held as the Burwood Domain and land leased by the education authorities by Mrs King covered with broom, seven, eight and nine feet high in places. Cattle graze over the land, the broom being criss-crossed by their tracks. There arc no signs of a struggle leading up to the plot where the murdered woman was found, which fact leads - > the supposition that she either entered the scrub voluntarily or was chased into it. The area is sandy, but in places covered with turf. At the place of the crime, although there were pools of blood and small pieces of bone, which told of the violence of the blows struck, the ground was not cut up by the struggle. When Eric Mugford first came upon the scene he heard a movement in the scrub. “I thought it was one of the cows,” he said, “and I turned and saw I had the right number. Then I saw a man. He was in a dark suit and had rdark hat. I could not see his face, for his back was turned to me. He ran t >- wards the north-east, his arms pushing aside the scrub. At the same moment I saw a leg round the corner, and I thought it was the corpse of a man. He seemed to have his throat cut, and I galloped to Delama in’s stoie, aid then got the Rev. C. A. Tobin. Two deep indentations, slightly ?urved, were on the woman’s brow’, and the head had been battered by a number of blow’s. The wounds immediately over the eyes had caused the flesh to swell below, and made the woman look much older than she actually proved to be. Iler thickset body was another cause of tho miscalculation. Dr. Davis estimated the age at between 35 and 40.

The blow’s must have been very violent. for pieces of splintered bone lying round testified to that. These pieces of bone were collected carefully, and W’here two big pools of blood had been the turf was carefully lifted and taker away for examination.

Mrs Delamain, who has a small store near the scene of the tragedy, states that she heard screams coming from somewhere near the Lake Terrace road about 10.30 a.m. “They W’ere distinctly feminine,’’ she declared. “I thought they came from outside Mugford’s.’’ Several men who work in the neighbourhood also state that they heard screams about 10.30 a.m., a time, however, which is two hours earlier at least than the probable time of the tragedy. On the other hand, both Mrs King and Mrs Coombs who were in the yard at the tea rooms and nearer the scene than any' of the other residents, declare that they heard no screams. The piece of shirt found by a small boy on his way to school was copiously bespattered. It

included the breast portion, the collar, and some of the back. Its appearance showed clearly that ofhet portions of the murderer’s clothing must have been spotted thickly with blood. The attache case, which was found yesterday’ lying a yard from the woman was also well bespattered, and the indications are that the woman before she died had rolled slightly towards it. The fact that the murdered tore off a portion of his shirt dovetails with the story of a half-clothed and excited man having been seen at North New Brighton. A friend of Miss Scarff says that she was an unusual type a girl, and had been very strictly brought up. Miss Scarff joined the Girls’ Club started in Sydenham by the Y.W.C.A., in 1923. She was a member for some time. For some time she was a nursegirl. The murder has once more raised the question: What happened to Irma Timms? In January of this year, on the day of the New Brighton gala, the little girl Timms disappeared. She has nol been found.l A sinister aspect is given

to her disappearance by the adventure of another small girl on the same day. This girl lives with her parents in Lonsdale Street, close to the New Brighton Domain, which extends from New Brighton to North Beach. The Timms residence was situated in Keppel .St., which runs into Lonsdale street at right angles. On the day of the gala the gu from Lonsdale Street was accosted by a man who induced her to sit on the bar of his bicycle. He was heading for the sandhills of the domain when she became frightened and got away rom him. She went home and told her parents, and her father searched for the man without success. Then came ■ news of the disappearance of Irma Timms. . Tn the New Brighton Domain is a big area of broom ami undergrowth similar to that at Burwood—dense, and in places 10£t. high, a perfect hiding place. The North Beach entrance to the. do main is about three miles from the scene of yesterday’s tragedy. In the domain a

man could live for some time if he could secure food, and nobody would know of his presence. The broom at Burwood provides also an ideal hiding place for a lengthy period so long as food could be obtained. All through the present year burglaries have been occurring at intervals at New Brighton and Not th Beach, and Mr. D. G. Sullivan, M.P., is engaged at present in an attempt to secure for North Beach a resident policeman. At the present time Burwood is the centre of a big area that is not served

by police protection. There is a station at New Brighton, and one at Richmond. From North Beach to Richmond is country that is lonely and deserted —an area in which only roads cut through the acres of dense scrub. Long before the present tragedy the residents have lived in a condition bordering on terror through various happenings. Certain people have been the prey of petty thieves and women have been molested. The district came under notice some vears ago as the scene of the outrage on a woman committed by a man named Griffiths. Scrub grows right to the metal of the road, and residents say that the Waimairi County Council does not compel property-owners to cut the broom back. There are women in the locality who will not venture outside at nights. Nurses at the Bottle Lake Hospital do Slot use the road with any faeling of security. ~