MOUNTAIN'S SECRET

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22468, 11 July 1936, Page 5 (Supplement)

MOUNTAIN'S SECRET

FUNERAL PYRE ON SUMMIT The newly-organised Scotland Yard of New Hampshire is now facing its first real'test —that of bringing to justice those responsible for the gruesome killing of an unknown young woman on a mountain top. The charred remains ■were discovered recently on the summit of Mount Wantastiquet, Chesterfield —a mountain known as Rattlesnake Hill. There was evidence that tlio body had been. soaked in gasoline, then ignited, and the whole mountain-top turned into a funeral pyre, which foresters extinguished after a fight of 36 hours. It was at ten o'clock at night when Fire Warden Shirley Bevis received th 6 alarm that a forest fire was raging on the mountain top. He collected a crew of fire-fighters, and they stemmed the flames after many square miles of woodland had been burnt out. Then early next morning two of the fire-fighters made tho grim discovery. Tho charred skeleton was on top of a rocky crag, and it was clear that tho victim was taken thero by the murderers. An autopsy revealed that tho woman, between 20 and .30, had been a mother, and that she had been tortured before the breath left her body. Her skull was fractured, and arms and legs broken as though by separate blows. Nine bullet-holes were discovered, and these had been mado by a blackened revolver found nearby.

The only clue to identification which the police have is a single shoe, and a purse containing four shillings.