BRUTAL MURDER

Northern Advocate, 4 August 1932, Page 9

BRUTAL MURDER

WOMAN STRANGLED. IN CENTENNIAL PAIMv. • ' SYDNEY, July 2S. Hilda White, aged ML’ years, of Liverpool Street, Darlinghurst-, was found dead near the Palm Drive in-Centen-ial Park yesterday morning. She had been murdered.

When discovi?red, she was lying on her back, her clothing stained with blood.

•Marks on the ground, and a bloodstain, whirl) wore round within a few foot of the roadway, showed that the woman had made a desperate struggle to break away from . her , assailant. After the attack the . murderer had carried her about 'lO yards t from the drive, and placed her behind a scat under a lig tree. She was either dead whe)i placed there or dying from her injuries.

Detective-Sergeants . Keogh, Matthews, Barrett, and Power, who are investigating- the murder, have been hampered by the fact that ( no one has come forward who saw the woman enter the park. The police feel 7confident that the murderer is a man. Detectives believe that the woman accompanied her murderer to the park, but they do not know whether she know him. They have not overlooked the possibility that she was forced to accompany him. The police believe that her simple nature played into the hands of the murderer and contributed to the tragedy. The murder ■is thought to have occurred when the woman resisted an attempt to assault her.

The murdered woman lived in a block of apartments with bor. mother, jbrothcr, and sister. She left home on luesday evening, and said she would soon return. When ..she-failed- to arrive by 2 o'clock yesterday morning her mother was alarmed, and reported her daughter missing at Darlinghurst Police Station.

The body was found at 7 o’clock by Mr Frame, one of the park rangers. The murdered woman’s clothes, were in disorder, and an undergarment had been pressed against her Heck. The police do not know whether her assailant tried to .stop the flow of blood Iron) his victim’s badly-cut .month, or whether the garment, aided him to strangle her. It is just possible that the injured woman regained conscion snVss tor a brief time, and raised it to her neck. A deep graze across the chin was the only external wound. Possibly the murderer Dad struck his victim in the face and partially stunned her before strangling her. The (Jovernnient Medical Olllcer (Dr. Aubrey Palmer) examined the body. He told detectives that death had occurred between six and twelve hours pievionsly. This Would place the time of the tragedy at a late hour on Tuesday night or early yesterdav morning. The Commissioner of Police (Mr Childs) and the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Branch (Detective-In-spector Prior) inspected the scene.