Police Abandon Search For Weapon

Northern Advocate, 14 June 1947, Page 4

Police Abandon Search For Weapon

(Special.) AUCKLAND. This Dav. The police guard mounted at 37 Horotutu Road, One Tree Hill, where Mrs Gladys Ruth Rusdcn was murdered in broad daylight on June 5, has been removed.

With the knowledge that the crime was probably premeditated, the anxiety of women in the locality has been eased.

The 20 police officers and men working on the case have also abandoned their search for the weapon, bclievedly a spanner, which inflicted four deep head wounds on the victim.

The post-inorlem report on the death of Mrs Rusdori which is being prepared by the pathologist. Dr Walter Gilmour. will be completed within a few days. This is expected to establish the approximate time of tile murder and also indicate the weapon used. EARLY ARREST UNLIKELY

The widespread investigations that began immediately after Mrs Rusden's body was discovered in the kitchen of her home by her husband have produced no evidence that gives promise of an early arrest, although the large file of information collected by the police in interviews with hundreds of people is growing daily. Detectives have almost completed the task of questioning the 400 taxidrivers in Auckland. Interviews with bus drivers and passengers and a house-to-house canvass over a wide area around Horotutu Road have also been carried out.

What promised to be a useful piece of information gleaned during the canvass of houses has brought no results, as the woman whom a neighbour said she saw talking to some person outside the Rusdens' front gate on the Thursday morning at about the supposed time of the murder has not been found. The police broadcast a message asking the woman to get in touch with them, but she has not appeared. Mrs Pansy Louise Frances Frost, of 133 Newton Road, who was found lying semi-conscious on the washouse floor and bleeding profusely from cuts on her arms and legs when detectives investigating the murder went to interview her at her home last Monday afternoon, is still a patient in the Auckland Hospital. She is making satisfactory progress and is expected to be out of hospital within about 10 days.