MURDERERS AT LARGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20426, 30 November 1929, Page 2 (Supplement)

MURDERERS AT LARGE.

MYSTERIES IN ENGLAND.

UNDETECTED CRIMES

LIST OF RECENT CASES

Scotland Yard and The police in tlje English provinces have lately been faced With a lomarkablc list of unsolved murder mysteries, the last being the sensational case of -Mr. Oliver, the Reading tobacconist.

Daily Express representatives, who have made inquiries throughout the country ,• state that the explanation offered by prominent detectives and other police officials is that the findings of the royal commission on the police have made the work of detectives much more' difficult than it was before. New regulations at Scotland Yard, they assert, compel a detective to exercise absurd caution in questioning a suspected person.

The Reading murder is the fifth which Scotland Yard has failed to solve this year. . It has had three murder cases in its own area this year with which it has been unable to make headway.

Scotland Yard detectives could not find the criminal in the Eltham train mystery, nor in the murder of the Camberwell woman known as Singing Sosie; nor could they clear up the Croydon poisoning mystery. They were unsuccessful when the Hampshire police appealed to them to take over the investigations in the Southampton garage murder. All these failures have been recorded since the outcry' against alleged third degree" methods led to the appointment of the royal commission on police procedure. Before then Scotland Yard had an enviable record of success in murder investigation.

At present a detective cannot ask a person accused of murder, even after a caution, to make a statement about a, revolver he is said to have borrowed before the crime. Here is a list of recent cases:—

Miss Mabel Escott, aged 32, Welsh school teacher, died in a hotel in Villiers Street, Strand. Verdict: "Murder bv some person unknown."—October, 1928. Croydon arsenic mystery. Three members of one family dead. Arsenic found in each of the bodies.—1929.

Mr. Oliver, tlie Reading tobacconist, murdered in his shop by ail unknown assailant.—l 929.

Mrs. Winifred Eas(, (he 28-year-old wife of an auctioneer, killed on tho railway between Eltham and Ividbiooke, March, 1929. Passengers heard screams, but the assailant escaped Mrs. Catherine Peck, who died in Camberwell Road, Loudon, from throat wounds. —Ma rcli 1929.

Alary Jane Sewell, aged six, suffocated by a handkerchief forced into her mouth bv some person unknown. Wilful murder verdict.—April, 1928.

William Francis O'Donnell, aged 11, murdered by unknown assailant at Cliorlton.—November, 1928.

Southampton garage murder (Mr. Messiter). —January 10, 1929. In addition there arc hundreds of other crimes committed in England since the sittings of the royal commission, where suspected persons, in many cases known to the police, have never been arrested. The chiefs of the Criminal Investigation Department, at Scotland Yard arc aware that detectives .are in a largo measure impotent in present circumstances.