WEST COAST MAN HUNT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 13 October 1941, Page 6

WEST COAST MAN HUNT

ANOTHER GUN BATTLE YESTERDAY

Graham Escapes Police Net

BRIEF VISIT TO FORMER HOME

Death of Wounded Constable

Hokitika, Oct. 12. Since he began his chain of killings, Stanley Graham has not missed one day without coming down for further shooting, and as darkness fell to-night there were complete preparations to receive him should he come back again to his house. He will meet, if he comes as he did this morning, machine-guns, searchlights and every possible resistance. The most startling development of the weekend was another pitched battle this morning just before dawn, in which he narrowly j missed shooting another man and is believed himself to have been | wounded. Should he be killed in another fight to-ni-ht it will probably not be known before dawn, because the order in Koiterangi ; to-night are that every man must stay at his post till daybreak. 1 here will be no movements at all after dark. \ Some of the men in the vigil will be having their fifth night of | waiting for a killer who has shot so far at nine men, killed six and , wounded one. He may be wounded, but he is certainly still able to move about, since he escaped again in the dark hours just before ! dawn. It was eerie at Koiterangi to-day. with everyone there in full i knowledge that in the bush not far away was Graham, perhaps sleep- j ing, perhaps with his rifle trained on or near his home. Army and Air Force co-operation with Police and Home Guard is now working fully, but the essential fact is that in a five-day manhunt Graham is still alive and more dangerous than ever. A feature to-day was the forbidding by the police of giving any information to reporters and permission was also withheld to take newspaper photographs.

Graham came to within a few yards of his home again this morning, got within feet of the defenders and in a gun battle again escaped. Like an eel hr must have wormed his way through blackberries and again emerged the victor in a fight with a number of men. The position seems to be that under cover of darkness Graham, with the world as his enemy, will carry on with his guerrilla warfare. That is . the term which might be most aptly ‘applied to a fourth night clash by the wanted man with the police and Kokatahi Home Guardmen at the Koiterangi Hall at 4.15 o’clock this morning. As in former occasions, in spite of the heavy odds, fortune was again on the side of Graham and he made a dramatic escape to one of his lairs. Graham fired only one shot, but this was within inches of adding to the almost incredible chain of killings. Following heavy rain showers earlier in the night, there was light moonlight till a few seconds before his stealthy approach along the fence at the side of the hall nearest to Camelback Mountain, which is barely a mile away. When, perhaps most providentially for Graham, the moon was clouded over, the form of a man appeared silhouetted in the more than semidarkness. Graham, who was recognised, came to a barbed-wire fence 12 feet from the two nearest police constables, who were “dug in” on a minor scale underneath and out from the hall a couple of feet. Graham then reached over the fence, dropping a blanket which he is thought to have secured from Smith’s hut nearly three-quarters of a mile away toward Camelback. CHALLENGE TO HALT He had just placed his hand over the fence to lever himself across when there was the challenge to halt, “Who goes there? Hands up!” There was no reply and within a fraction of a second a young police constable nearest the corner, who had a miraculous escape set off the first rifle shot of a heavy barrage which followed at close range. The marauder made off in uncanny fashion and dropped to the ground in a very slight depression fringing blackberry bushes in a paddock urhich meets the Koiterangi roadway just to the right of the front entrance to the public hall and across the road from the house. Though the snipers with heavy calibre rifles lost sight of Graham in a flash, they maintained firing over a confined area in hopes of bringing the hunted man to a halt. In addition, the leader of the guardsmen, Mr Sam Godfrey, who fired probably the most rifle shots—seven all told —seized a nearby shot gun and raked the clump of blackberries in the paddock where he thought Graham might be hiding quietly. One of the visiting policemen In the forefront of the shooting rose from his position in a poorly built-up sandbagged dugout and went to move about. He was within an ace of being shot by Mr Godfrey, who, with cool resourcefulness, was able to size the position up in a flash and recognise that it could not be Graham, as he could not be elsewhere than on the other side of the barbed wire fence in such a short space of time. TYPICAL GETAWAY Graham’s typical getaway is described as eel-like, and an extensive trail of blood found for three chains from the point where Graham threw himself to the ground gives graphic proof of his slow but certain path of departure. At this point the blood trail ceased, which would indicate that Graham, who was wearing thigh gumboots, must have regained his feet to make good his withdrawal from his fourth made escapade, every one of ■which promised to end in his being wiped out. When the police recovered the blanket which Graham carried to the 1 scene it bore the marks of two bullet holes, but these may have been inflicted while it was lying upon the ground by members of the ..’ noting party. One of the caDy shots at Graham at close range tore through a horizontal fence post stay. The shot fired by Graham lodged in the side of the hall inches above the head of a policeman, i It made only a small mark and was undoubtedly fired from the colt pistol removed by Graham from the dead body of Sergeant Cooper at the time of the first shootings. It was definitely not a discharge from a large calibre rifle or the .405 with four points of an inch bore known to be in his possession. Many have hazarded guesses as to 1 the reasoning of Graham in the grave risks which he takes in attempting, under cover of darkness, to return to his home. Some people advance the theories that Graham is obsessed about the neglect of his prize stock, concerned over his much-prized gamecocks, which continue to wander about in the vicinity of the homestead, or that he is concerned about his wife and two young children, of whom he is remarkably fond, and the supposed former presence of a fairly large sum of money which he left in the house and which is now reputedly in possession of the authorities. Searchlights were used farther down the road last night, but there was none i near the hall or the house. Friday night was the third successive ' night of terror and uncertainty in the j

s district. Twice there were clashes with it Graham, one at 11 p.m. when men j a fired from under the hall at a figure | ■1 they thought they saw move stealthily. [ h and once when he came to the hotel at | e the break of the next day and escaped t. from the Home Guard into the scrub, j r The clashes occurred three miles from i e one another, the first near Graham’s j h own home and the second across the e bush and over the Kokatahi River. Shooting from the hip, the hunted e man nearly added another to his list j _ of victims when at 4.45 a.m. on Satur -1 _ day he came to the lower Kokatahi I j. Hotel and knocked on the door. Mr if George Simons, Grevmouth, a Home n Guardsman, challenged him. From the a door of the hotel Simons fired in the half light at Graham just as he raced i s across cleared ground for about a . chain till he reached the Roman Catholic Church grounds near the hotel. r Just before he reached the fence, Gra- _ ham swung round and fired from the s hip. the bullet whistling past Simon’s it head. The turn about from running _ at top speed to firing from the hip was J e made with amazing speed, and just as j _ quickly again Graham leaped over the j _ fence and disappeared in the scrub, j d Simons, almost as soon as he first saw j _ Graham, was joined by two other Home j Guardsmen, Cecil Meharry and George j e Cooper, both of Greymouth, and the j ii licensee of the Lower Kokatahi Hotel. ■ o S. F. Richardson, who is also in the _ Home Guard. They opened a running, e fire in a dim light, but Graham zig- ' r zagged, and they did not hit him. WATCH AT HOTEL Simons was one of several Home : Guardsmen in the hotel who had kept, 1 watch all night. A long time before i • the actual knocking came at the front e| door, .they heard noises but could not ‘ n ' tell where they came from, and had no 1 o means of finding out who made them, o When Simons opened the door ne 1 saw Graham clearly silhouetted. He ' c was wearing khaki shorts, gumboots. i e and a black football jersey with a y leather patch on the back. He was; ». also thought to be carrying an am- I y munition belt. His left arm, Simons j 1 thought, seemed to be strapped to his j _ stomach. This lends support to the \ s theory that he was wounded in Thurse day night's clash when two men were - killed, but the wound apparently had ; 2 no effect then on his physical condi- I tion, for he leapt effortlessly over a / fence four feet high, carrying a rifle. , i The earlier shooting during the. a night happened at 11 o'clock, three j e miles away and within 50 yards of the j !, place of the original killings and those | a of Clouston and Hutchison. There was t no shot from Graham and it was pitch a dark. What had happened was not a known till 5 in the morning, when ■ a at daylight the men who had fired the 1 shots came out from their posts on , the ground under the Koiterangi hall. . 5 They could not leave their posts all 5 night and did not know whether their ■ - shots had any effect or not at the j 2 time. The men said they thought they , z saw a figure making its way along j 1 the blackberry bushes near the . 2 hall and they fired round after round. d The figure disappeared in the darkness i 2 but no one left their posts and the ■ 2 police 200 yards farther along the j i road, though they heard the shots, did not know what had happened till day- j break. One policeman was lying with a rifle in a parked car near the hall and he too could not move, as orders - were to shoot on sight at anyone movBLOODSTAINED SINGLET - Another sensational development on f ' Saturday was the finding in a hut on I i Mr C. Smith’s farm of clear evidence , I I that Graham had changed his clothes, ; ‘ ! rested and eaten there, probably ) | throughout Friday and during the time , 5 when the aerial search was being made. f Graham knew the hut well, and had » ‘often used it in the days before he was ! a fugitive. Mr Smith lives alone in J I the hut, and had left it to take part in i I the search for Graham, leaving the L ; blinds up and the door open. When ! ’ | he came back to it the blinds were j 1 : down and the door shut, and he j ! thought he could sec one corner of a , 1 j blind turned up. He reported the in- j | : cident, but it was not till next day j that Home Guardsmen went to the hut. 1 I They found there a blood-stained • ! singlet with bullet holes in the shoulder and a black football jersey of the i type Graham was known to possess. I Outside the hut was a pair of trouJ j sers, also blood-stained. The bullet 1 holes in the singlet, which was a thick woollen one, matched those in the jer--1 sey. Butter and a loaf of bread were ■ missing from the hut. Guards were i 1 j kept posted near the hut in case . ; Graham returned. ‘ PREPARATIONS FOR LAST NIGHT 1 Though there was no official an- j 1 nouncement it was readily learnt by i Press reporters’ own investigations ’ that far-reaching improvements in the ■ hopes of bringing about the capture cr ! shooting of Graham are to be intro- ’ duced to-night. Such of these that ■ can be divulged unharmfully are that i searchlights will be freely operative. At Koiterangi hall, near the Graham homestead, dugouts will be built up to look like dugouts, instead of what could i almost be described as bordering on I I mere deathtraps which were in use last | night, when a young policeman just missed being shot. There are other precautions and progressive steps, such

as the use of signallers at various protected locations. This should prove night. ' ,l ‘‘ 1,,m icai pCf GK A lIA M IVOl’Mllil) UNDER AItMPIT In spite of the visits of Graham to the scene of the two tragedies on at least four occasions, doubts are expressed by some local residents that Graham will put in an appearance to night, because of his apparent loss of blood and resultant. weakness, but it is apparent rrom his present frame of mind that nothing would stop him from continuing in his most daring practices of returning to his home. It was known from the singlet recovered from Smiths hut that Graham had received a fairly severe wound milder the armpit u f his left side and it ■is now thought highly probable that he received further wounds from rifle fire | GRAHAM’S PROWESS WITH RIFLE The Kokatahi district is known for its good shots, but there can be few in New Zealand in Graham’s class. Stories of his neighbours which tell of his prowess include the following:— Graham once shot a deer between the eyes at 800 yards, a feat witnessed by two other men with him. He was so good with a .22 Winchester automatic that he could shoot ducks on the wing. Even as a youth he was regarded as an extremely fine shot, and he has had constant practice since. His collection of lilies was his pride and he kept them in perfect order. He also kept huge supplies of ammunition, though it is thought that his stocks for the seven millimetre Mauser must be getting low by now. In hands as skilled as Graham’s that gun can be fired at almost machine-gun speed