WOMEN ARRESTED

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11436, 5 February 1923, Page 5

WOMEN ARRESTED

ON CHARGE OF MURDER. POLICE EVIDENCE. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. (Received February 4, 5.5 p.m.) MELBOURNE, February 3. The doctor who made a post-mortem on the body found in the Yarra stated that it was too much decayed for him to be able to give the cause of death, but the head had not been severed, but apparently had dropped off when removed from its original restingplace. Three women, Hannah Mitchell, Margaret Mitchell, and Margaret Milward, have been arrested. H. Mitchell is charged with murdering in November, a girl named Bertha Ooughlan, and the other two with being accessories after the fact. All were remanded. A TELEPHONE CALL. The police evidence showed that Coughlan came to Melbourne from Omeo to receive medical treatment. She went to the house of Nurse Mitchell, and next day the nurse secured a car and, it is alleged, took the body supposed to be Coughlan’s and hid it in a gully 45 miles from Melbourne. The police, acting on certain information received, discovered where the body had been removed from the gully, but lost trace of it until Friday night, when they received a telephone call from a man stating that he had seen two men dumping a big package from the Anderson street bridge into the Yarra. Dragging resulted in the discovery of the body. REMOVAL OF BODY". At the time of her arrest Hannah Mitchell was out on bail in connection with a sensational shooting affair in December last. Coughlan was the daughter of wellknown residents of - Omeo. Her relatives were not aware that anything untoward had happened to her. They supposed that after visiting Melbourne to receive attention to her eyes she had gone on a visit to friends. The police say that the body twice, if not thrice, was removed to new burial-places before being dumped into the river.