THE RANDWICK TRAGEDY

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LX, Issue LX, 1 November 1910, Page 5

THE RANDWICK TRAGEDY

YOUNG BROWN ACQUITTED. BY CABLE— PRESS ASSOCIATION— COPYRIGHT. SYDNEY, Oct. 81. John Brown, arrested in connection ■with the death of the girl O'Brien, the victim of the Randwick mystery, has been discharged, the Crown authorities announcing they had no evidence to offer against him. Out on the sandhills at the back of the Kensington racecourse in Sydney, on August 24, a tram conductor, going on early duty, found the body of a young woman of 21. She proved to be Eileen Alice O'Brien, and the story of how she met her death is now being unravelled by the police, and is affording sensational reading. A nurse named Eleanor Brown and her son, John Brown, are under arrest in connection with the girl's death. There is evidence that in addition to undergoing an illegal operaton, the girl took a drug in poisonous quantities. From the first the police were satisfied that the girl had not died where the body was found — which is 300 yards f«rom the nearest habitation. A young -woman in Paddington told the police that she saw a sulky being driven Tapidly in the direction of Kensington the night before the body was found. It contained two men and a woman. The woman sat in the middle, and was supported by one of the men. The _girl""took particular notice of. the turnout, for the woman's head was swayin^ from side to side. Soon after she saw the sulky being driven back to Paddington without the woman. The deceased girl's mother is Nurse Roe, and she told the police that her daughter left home shortly after 10 o'clock on August 22 for the purpose of paying the rent to an estate agent at Bondi. Evidence at the inquest, however, seemed to show that Mrs Roe knew more of ' her daughter's movements than she professed. The chief witness was Mrs Phoebe Harriet Nock, who said that she was a* Nurse Brown's house ,on August 22, when a woman in ] a nurse's costume, whom she subsequently identified as Nurse Roe, came there. Mrs Nock returned to the house next day, and at 11 o'clock a young woman came to see Mrs Brown. Ten nainutes or so afterwards Mrs Brown came to her in an excited state and said, "Phoebe, this girl has f anted." The girl was reclining in a chair on the balcony, with her hands twitching. They carried her downstairs, and Nurse Brown asked the witness to go •fco Nurse Roe's, and ask her to come at once. When she went to Nurse Roe's the nurse was not in, and she left the message. Next day she met Nurse Brown at the Victoria Park races. Nurse Brown said, "They put her out on the sandhjlls." Mrs Nock said, "How cruel they were," and Nurse Brown replied, "It was better to put her there than to throw her over the cliffs, as her father and mother wanted to." Mrs Roe was asked by the coroner if she had said tfhis. but she denied it. v Mrs Brown was charged with having slain the girl, and Brown was charged that he, knowing her to have committed a felony, "did receive, relieve, comfort and assist her."