MURDER SUSPECTED

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 10542, 19 March 1920, Page 4

MURDER SUSPECTED

PALMERSTON TRAGEDY WOMAN’S THROAT *CUT FROM BAR TO EAR. NO ARREST MADE YET. PER PRESS ASSOCIATION. PALMERSTON N., March IS. Indications point to a brutal murdei having been committed in Palmerston North last night. Early this morning the body of a woman with her tnroat cut, was loaner lying by a leuco in an unlormed sued running between Ruahine street and Fitzroy street, about koii yards from Ferguson street corner. A gentleman named Weils, a resident of the vicinity, was passing througn the street between 6 and i o’clock, when he observed the body. The police were communicated with, and on arrival immediately atterwards removed the corpse to the morgue. The body was then completely cold, and the woman appeared to have been dead for some hours.

Investigations disclosed that thu body was that of a married woman, Mary Ethcliii Webby, aged forty-four years, who resided with her husband, Felix Webby, a drayman in tho employ of a local firm of contractors. There is one child, a girl of nine years of age. Deceased's face was covered with blood, but there were marks on the body other than the fatal injuries to the throat. No instrument by which the deed could have been performed was found, so that the inference drawn by tho police is. that, the woman was foully murdered. , The scene of the tragedy is an unformed street running between Fitzroy and Ruahine streets, and the body was found at a place whefe there is a'dip in each thoroughfare. A number of big trees overhang the fence near the Fitzroy street intersection, at which there is a high bank, with a drop of fully ten feet to the unformed load. The locality is a quiet one, tho nearest dwellings being well over a chain away. The road is used only as a quick' means of entering from Ruahino street to Fitzroy street or vice versa, so that- a crime could be easily .committed and the criminal leave the spot without exciting any comment from rieople who might be passing. Furtheri inquiries made at the police station elicited the information from Senior-Sergeant Fraser that the wounds narily severe, tho throat having been cut from ear to ear. The senior sergeant van of the opinion that such a gash could not have been inflipted with any other instrument than a razor.

The police and detective, staff are pursuing full and searching investigation, but so far no arrest has been made.