BODY FOUND IN YARRA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18316, 5 February 1923, Page 7

BODY FOUND IN YARRA.

YOUNG GIRL MURDERED.

THREE WOMEN ARRESTED.

Australian and N.Z- Cable Association. | (Hoed. 5.5 p.m.) MELBOURNE, Feb. 8. Three women, Hannah Mitchell, Margaret Mitchell, and Margaret Milward have been arrested in connection with the discovery of a body in the River Yarva. Hannah Mitchell is charged with having murdered, 'in November, a girl named Bertha Coughlan, and the other two are charged with being accessories after the fact. All were remanded. While dragging the Yarra River, the police discovered the decapitated body of a young girl in a bag. The head was found in a second bag. The decomposition of the body indicated that the girl had been dead for some months. The police have been searching for a coffin reported to have ' been thrown from a bridge by two men the. previous night. A doctor who made a post-mortem on the body stated that it was too much decomposed for him to be able to give the cause of death, but the head had not been covered, but apparently dropped off when the body was removed from its: original resting place. ' ' The police evidence showed that Coughlan came to Melbourne from Omeo to re--ceive medical treatment. She went to the house of Nurse Mitchell, and next day the nurse secured' a car and allegedly took a body, supposed to be that of Coughlan, and hid it in a gully 45 miles from Melbourne. The police, acting on certain information received, discovered where the body had been removed from the gully, but lost trace ot it until Friday night, when thoy .received a telephone call from a man stating that he had seen two men dumping a big package from Anderson Street Bridge into The Yarra. .At the time of her arrest Hannah Mitchell was out on bail in connection with a sensational shooting affair in December last. Miss Coughlan was the daughter of well-known residents of Omeo. Her relatives were not-aware that anything untoward hid happened to her. They supposed that after visiting Melbourne to receive attention to her eyes she had gone on a visit to friends. The police state that the body was twice, if not thrice, removed to new burial places before being dumped into the river.