ASSAULT AND ROBBERY

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12643, 31 December 1926, Page 9

ASSAULT AND ROBBERY

YOUNG WOMAN ATTACKED MYSTERIOUS HULL OUTRAGE. The iron ehell of a Mills hand-gren-ade fastened to the end of an iron bar is the only clue the East Riding police have obtained to assist them in their search for a man who nearly bludgeoned to death Miss Laviuia Mary Prissick, a pretty girl employed as cook at the Hull Tuberculosis Sanatorium. Her handbag, which contained several pounds, is missing. She was found by workmen in a field a few hundred yards from the sanatorium. Her head was terribly battered and her faee and hair covered with blood, and she waa at first thought to be dead. The previous day Miss Prissick had visited her sister and mother, who live in Brighton street, Hull, riding there on a bicycle. After tea she said she would go back to the sanatorium by omnibus, as tliero was a strong •rind blowing. NO MEN FRIENDS. The matron of the sanatorium states

that the girl had no men friends so far as she knew, and that her only’ interests were lier work arid • her home. Her fiance was killed during the war. She had apparently been waylaid by a man who had waited in a recess formed where a gate stands back about a foot from ttie road and dragged through the partly-open gate into a field, where she was struck on the head with the bomb. About a yard from the gateway the ground was . stained with blood. She apparently attempted to .escape from the man, climbed over a fence, and ran into tjje widdle of a field, where she was again attacked and fell insensible. A man is said to have been seen acting suspiciously on Castle Hill, near the place where the girl was found. He was wheeling a bicycle on the road about the time Miss Prissick left the omnibus in Cottinghara. and it is alleged that he was pretending to renair his bicycle. The owner of the field lives nearby, but no member of his household heard screams or cries for help, probably owing to the strong wind which was blowing.