POLICE TRAP

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22675, 12 March 1937, Page 8

POLICE TRAP

SUCCESSFUL DISGUISE "HOUSEKEEPER WANTED" SEQUEL TO AN ADVERTISEMENT INCIDENTS IN MELBOURNE [from our owx correspondent] MELBOURNE. Mar. 4 A detective who posed as a railway porter and a policewoman who impera woman who was seeking employment as a housekeeper were the principal figures in a successful trap which was set for a man who has since been charged with committing capital offences against women at East Malvern, a suburb of Melbourne. Having seen an advertisement for a housekeeper in a newspaper about three weeks ago a young single woman applifed for the position. She received an answer from a "Mr. Mills, of Wellington Street, East Malvern," requesting her to meet him at the East Malvern railway station about 8 p.m. on February 13. When the young woman learned later that there was no Wellington Street in East Malvern she became suspicious and the police were informed Detective as Porter The police had been seeking a man who was alleged to have committed offences against women near the East Malvern station. One offence was alleged to have occurred on December 4 and another on February 3. On each occasion the man had made appointments to meet the women at the East Malvern station to discuss their suitability for the post of housekeeper. Detefctives of tho Malvern division of the Criminal Investigation Branch decided that, instead of tho third woman keeping the appointment, Policewoman Knott would be there. She was accompanied by Detective McMennemin, who wore the uniform of a railway porter. At East Malvern station Mr. McMennemin busily attended to the lights on the station,, while Policewoman Knott waited a few yards away, In the street near the entrance to the station there was a police car with a senior detective and two plain-clothes constablesj Pre-arranged Signal Almost as soon as Policewoman Knott alighted, from the train a man, who said that he was Mr. Mills, approached her. He asked her whether she was the applicant whom he was to meet and she said'that she was. The man then asked her to accompany him to his house. Policewoman Knott then gave the pre-arranged signal for action by dropping her gloves. Mr. McMennemin j seized t the man by the shoulder and j Policewoman Knott ran toward the hidden police party, waving her arms. The ! police in the car drove to the station j entrance and took tho man into the i station* office.