EVANS BAY MURDER SEARCH NARROWS DOWN

Grey River Argus, 23 May 1947, Page 7

EVANS BAY MURDER SEARCH NARROWS DOWN

WELLINGTON, May 22.

The police are still seeking the murderer of Francis Roy Wilkins, 47, garage owner, found batetred on April 21 at Evans Bay. The previous afternoon Wilkins was given £B5O in notes by a Wellington manufacturing tailor, Mr Maurice Hayvice. >Wilkins was to buy Hayvice a car from a man he knew. This was at 3.30 in the afternoon. Two hours later at his garage Wilkins received a telephone call. As he finished he told his foreman, George Heyder, he would be back after tea, and drove away in his 1932 model coupe. It was not until the dead man’s landlady informed the police the following day that he had not come home that there was any search made for him. The body, with the skull battered in three places, was then found. His car was found abandoned in Roxborough Street more than three miles away. A woman nearby on the evening of the murder saw a man leave the car there soon after 7.30. The driver got out, walked up and down the street with a torch, returned to the car and finally walked away. When it was examined later the floor of the coupe was found to be covered with blood. A found man saw the car pass the Basin Reserve not long after six o’clock on the evening of the murder. There was a mark of bloodstains on the wood inside an Adelaide Road garage outside which the •grey coupe was seen at about 5.45 the same evening. An attempt had been made to remove them. Since then detectives’ most intensive investigations have centred around the Adelaide Road district.

An automatic pistol with which it is believed that Mr Wilkins was shot has not so far been recovered. Wilkins was an undischarged bankrupt, but was apparently quite well off, and was known to have frequently carried large sums of money. He has been described as an inveterate gambler and at the time of his •death owed several persons various sums of money. It is believed an arrest will be made.