THE DUNEDIN TRAGEDY.

Marlborough Express, Volume I, Issue 67, 22 March 1880, Page 3

THE DUNEDIN TRAGEDY.

THE SUSPECTED MURDERER.—HIS Arrest and antecedents. Full particulars of the arrest and antecedents of the man Robert Butler, alias Edward James Donnelly, who has been arrested on suspicion of being the perpetrator of the Dunedin double murder, are.given in*the “Otago Daily Times.’’ Butler, We learn, was discharged from gaol on the 18th of February, after serving a sentence of four years on a charge of burglary. Since the commission of the deed the police have strongly suspected him of being the criminal, and from the first have laid their plans to catch him. Having heard, that he had gone out of Dunedin northwards the two constables stationery at Waitaki • and Waikouaiti, respectively, were ordered from to go out in search of him. On .Sunday afternoon these constables (Colboume and Townsend by name) overtook him on the road,' about five miles from Waikouaiti. .Theyat once ordered him to stand, when he sprang behind a flax bush at the side of the road, anddpew a loaded six-chambered revolver, which he presented at them. The constables, however, rushed upon him and secured him, giving him no chance to use his weapon. He was taken to the VPaikouaiti look-up. Butler,

whatever may turn out regarding his guilt or innocence of th, crime at present imputed to him, is unquestionably a notorious and desperate criminal. His ago is 28 ; he is a smart, clever intelligent-looking man, of go'-d address and carriage; and he has a really good education (said to have been received chioliy in Pentridge Gaol, Victoria). If not a Victorian native, he has been in that colony since he was an infant. From the time he was ten years of age ho has been “in trouble” almost constantly. In Victoria he served sentences in the total amounting to 12 years, his piincipal crime being robbery under arms. The first knowledge we have of him in Otago is that for a period of some months in the early part of 1876 he held the position of teacher in the Homan Catholic school at Uromwell, a position his educational attainments enabled him to fill wonderfully well. He also established a night school in the town, which was numerously attended. For a time in Cromwell he seemed to he settling down to a respectable life. His antecedents were not known, and he earned for himself the character of a decent, deserving, respectable jmung man. But the criminal instinct could not be repressed. Although the charge was, we believe, never brought against him in a court of law, there was assumption so strong as to almost justify its being termed proof, that at the residence of the Rev. Father Kehoe, the Roman Catholic clergyman stationed at Cromwell, he stole a large sum of money— £SO or £6O we believe. This theft he is believed to have effected by his favorite mode of entrance—the window. Through Butler’s suggestions suspicion became fastened on a young lad who attended his school; but it was transferred into what was believed afterwards to he the right path by the fact that Butler made heavy investments in clothes and jewelery. Almost immediately following this, he made a sudden exit from Cromwell society, and made his way to Dunedin. Here he was detected iu a number of burglaries—the principal being at the Queen’s Theatre and the residence of Bishop Moran. An interesting little circumstance recorded of him by the police is that, after teaching in a Sunday school one Sunday morning, he broke into two hours the same night and made away with £l5O worth of jewellery. He made a very eloquent appeal to the judge for mercy, wi eu brought up in October, 1876, and charged with the various robberies sheeted home to him, but was sentenced to four years penal servitude.