STOWAWAY’S DEATH

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 17, 18 December 1935, Page 12

STOWAWAY’S DEATH

THE MONTEREY INCIDENT. Per Press Association. , • AUCKLAND, Dec. 17. A voung woman, Miss Phyllis Elbon. of Port Melbourne, who stowed away on the Monterey at Melbourne last week, lumped overboard and was drowned off Gabo Island while the liner was en route from Melbourne to Sydney. When the Monterey arrived here to-day a passenger said the young woman jumped from the boat deck m view of a party of seamen who were working there. The stowaway was discovered in the first-class lounge at about 8 p.m. on December 11, he added. She to(d the purser that her mother was ill and said

she had concealed herself as she did not have the fare to reach her mother in Sydney. She was. not placed in the ship’s lock-up, but in one of the firstclass staterooms. On the following morning she leaped from the boat deck, and although a seaman threw a lifebelt, which struck the water a few seconds after her, she apparently sank immediately and was not seen again. As soon as the alarm was given, the Monterey was swung hard to port and a lifeboat was swung mit and manned The Monterey circled while officers and men scanned the sea but no trace of the woman was found, and the voyage was continued after an hour’s fruitless Se< The gad left a note stating that her original story about having a sick mother .was false and tnat she had decided to take her life as she was unable to gain the affection of the man with whom she was in love.