UNSOLVED MURDERS

Hokitika Guardian, 29 September 1928, Page 6

UNSOLVED MURDERS

ADDITION TO N.S.W. LIST. DULWICH HILL CASE. : SYDNEY, September 21. To the-rather formidable list of unsolved murders in. New South Wales, this year was added, definitely, the Dulwich. Hill case, when, on Thursday, the city coroner refused to commit for trial John Patrick Reynolds, charged on somewhat slender evidence in connection with the cold-blooded killing of Mrs Sarah Fa Ivey and Miss Esthe,r Vaughan on June 30.

It will ho recalled that they were shot dead by a. masked gunman in their confectionery sljop, subsequent police investigation showing, the eriige to have been entirely-, unprovoked and calious in the extreme. Chief witness at the inquiry was Alexander Ross, who lived opposite the shop, and who saw the murderer walk out cf the place immediately after the shooting. But, while he positively identified Reynolds in a police line-up when the latter was arrested, lie was not at all positive in the Coroner’s Court. .It was his defection which swung the case in favour of the man accused.

In Court on Thursday he was asked if Reynolds was the man he saw leaving the shop on the night of the murder. “ I am not sure, now,” said Ross. “He seems different to me.”

The nearest he would go to identification was to say that Reynolds resembled the man who walked out of the shop and discarded the mask. Another witness, who had even a closer view of the murderer than Ross,was equally vague before the coroner. Police evidence was to the effect that Reynolds was arrested on minor charges of obtaining money by false pretences. He was questioned regarding the murder hut denied any connection with it. He said he could not ride a motor cycle, had no fircams and had never seen the mask. Later lie admitted he could ride a. motor cycle. Most sensatiofial evidence was given by members of the Irwin 'family with whom he had lived. Mrs Ethel Irwin •said that Reynolds attempted to entice her away from her husband, saying that be would take her husband down one of the hack lanes and put a bullet through him. When asked where lie would get a revolver lie replied: “I have a beauty at my uncle’s in Bankstown.”

Other members of the family gave evidence that Reynolds often spoke about the revolver be carried, and often suggested that lie would shoot if be bad the gun with him. A revolver was found in the fork of a. tree near the place when Reynolds had been living, but there was no evidence to connect it. either with Reynolds or the crime. The coroner returned a verdict o'l murder against a person unknown. Then, sitting as a magistrate, ho discharged .Reynolds on the murder counts. And so the most ferocious murder of the year joined the list of unsolved crimes.

—BBSS