MIDNIGHT DIGGING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22389, 8 April 1936, Page 16

MIDNIGHT DIGGING

MELBOURNE MYSTERY FOREIGNERS IN A GARDEN STRANGE STORY TO POLICE [from OtJR own correspondent] MELBOURNE, March 31 Tales of buried treasure where whispered in the streets of Richmond, an industrial suburb of Melbourne, last week because of mysterious midnight digging by two foreigners in the backyard of a house. At last residents of the street—some merely inquisitive and others genuinely alarmed —called in the police.

weeks earlier the house had been sold to the foreigners, and a tenant who had lived there for seven years had to move. Late on the night of the sale neighbours saw a motor-car being driven to the house. Two men alighted and entered the house, carrying something heavy between them. All that night the men dug furiously, and left at dawn.

Padlocks on Doors On the following Sunday the men returned and resumed their mysterious digging. Curious sightseers were not welcomed, and heavy padlocks were placed on the doors of the house. For two nights the men stuck to their eerie task and once more departed. The mystery took a new turn when a curious neighbour, in the absence of the strangers, peered through a window of the house and saw two boots protruding from behind a door. A tragedy was feared, and it was at that stage that the police were summoned. The police forced their way into the house. They discovered there a complete miner's outfit —picks, saws, crowbars and shovels. The boots which had inspired the thought of a tragedy were "unoccupied." However, floors had been ripped up and deep tunnels had been dug under the rooms, while extensive digging had also taken place in the backyard. The mystery was solved when the police interviewed a middle-aged German cabinetmaker, who was one of the mysterious diggers. He told an incoherent story, but the burden of it was that lie had lived in the house with a German family in 1921. Two daughters in the family disappeared, and he was convinced they had been murdered. He was also certain that their bodies had been buried on the property —one in the backyard and the other under the kitchen floor.

Further Digging Possible It is stated that the man went to the police several times over a number of years to urge that investigations should be made into the fate of the two women. When he could not persuade the police to believe his story, he bought the property for £IOO and undertook the search himself. Contending that the fences round the property have been moved since he lived there, the German has announced his intention of seeking to purchase the adjoining property if his search fails. The police will not interrupt the digging as long as the German and his companion do not encroach on anyone else's property.