ON MURDERER'S TRAIL

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22193, 21 August 1935, Page 8

ON MURDERER'S TRAIL

PURSUERS' PERILOUS JiWIM I SHARK-INFESTED WATERS [fhom: oub own corriisponiikwt] SYDNEY. A ig. 9 After a long chase through tropical bush and daring shark-infested waters, Constable Langdon, of the North Australian Police, has come up w:th an aboriginal named Minemara, vho is wanted on a charge of murder, on a mangrove-fringed island near Point Bla.fce. Minemara escaped fron Fanny Bay gaol, Darwin, and Constables Langdon and Woodcock, with black trickers, went in /pursuit of hiin. Near Point Keats Woodcock became ill with malaria and returned to Darwin. Constable Langdon went 0:1 and picked up news of his quarry a 1 Point Blaze. There he was told that Minemara was camped with a mob of blrcks at Fmnis Creek, but by the time Lingdon got there they had moved on. Ho followed their tracks along the const and was told that the man he wanted was on Grosß Island. There was nc canoe available, so Constable Langdon and his four trackers swam across the sharkinfested channel to the island. Cn their arrival Minemara escaped into the dense mangroves which surround the island and Constable Langdon is trying to keep him penped up there. If he escapes the policeman is prepared to continue on hisi trail until he "gets hi* man.'' Minemara is "Public Knemy No. 1" in the Northern Territory. He is actually' the only criminal who is being sought by a patrol of the Nortihurn Territory police. That is the umnviable record that he lias; that in the 523,620 square miles off territory from Alice Springs to Bathurst Island, aiid from Queensland to Western Australia, only one mam has been ablo to ccmmit a serious crime and —for the m ament — get away with it. Minemara is a gangster, a re ll stoneage "Searface." He is a full brother to every racketeer He is, or vrai, righthand man of the native Numarluk, whoso activities now are somewhat cramped by the four galvanised iron walls o!f Fanny Bay gaol beside the Darwin aerodrome. Minemara and Nemarluk are killers. They terrcriiied not xnerely white men, but their own people