AFTER TEN YEARS

Grey River Argus, 28 February 1947, Page 5

AFTER TEN YEARS

Murder Conviction NO BODY FOUND Feb. 27. Despite absence of a body, and the fact that ten years have elapsed between the crime and the arrest of the accused, Frederick Lincoln McDermott, a labourer, aged 83, was found guilty at Bathurst of the murder near Grenfell on September 5, 1936, of William Henry Lavers. He was sentenced to death. This is believed to be the first time in Australian criminal history that a man has been tried and found guilty of murder without any body having been found. The case has been notable for the persistence and length of police inquiries. During his ten years of investigations, Detective Sergeant Caiman travelled more than 15,000 miles in several Australian States and New Guinea. The finding of the chassis of an old car in a backyard at Carcoar last year led to an intensification of the search. Lavers, aged 49, a farmer and storekeeper, vanished from his store, twelve miles from Grenfell. A bloodstained petrol pump handle, with human hair adhering to it, was found outside, but no trace of a body was ever found. Tfie first clues were the pump handle and tyre marks, but it took nearly ten years to locate the car, which had apparently been demolished and disposed of in various dumps. On October 9, last year, three detectives went to Griffith to interview a man and made an all night car trip of 280 miles to Dubbo to arrest McDermott. The trial lasted nine days. The jury went cut on Tuesday afternoon but returned late next morning to ask the Judge to read the evidence of deceased’s brother-in-law. The jury went out again for li hours before returning a verdict of guilty. The announcement brought tense scenes. A coloured woman, with whom accused had been living, and who had accused him on several occasion of having murdered Lavers, broke into a fit of loud sobbing and was assisted from the court. In broken tones, McDermott said: “I am innocent of this awful charge. I am not guilty!”