Police Sceptical

NZ Truth, Issue 1245, 10 October 1929, Page 5

Police Sceptical

from the Coney Island police that the thing is just a hoax. This is what a New York newspaper reported a few days after Bvophy's clothes were discovered m the bathhouse locker at Coney Island. "Because of a number of unexplained circumstances, police of the Coney Island station to-day refused to accept the finding of clothing and personal papers belonging to Richard Gale Brophy' m a bath-house locker yesterday as evidence that Brophy was drowned.

"This was despite the fact, police say, that Brophy had written to his wife on August 15 that he was going to Coney Island and would 'walk into the waves until they cover me and then I will be no more.'

"Detectives McCarthy and Fitzgerald said a search of Brophy's clothing had yielded, nothing but personal cards identifying him with the Byrd Expedition, and cablegrams from Commander Byrd. , ■ • ■.' ■ ...... "Not a cent of money or anything of value was found m the clothing. The detectives viewed this fact as very unusual, and more than likely significant that the clothing and . papers were "planted" m the locker. ' "In addition, police received a tele--phone call last night m which it was asserted that Brophy could be found m a New York hotel. The caller described himself as a lawyer, but did not give his name, and hung up.

"Efforts to trace the call were unsuccessful.

"He was, it was learned, attached to the Byrd Expedition, and went with it as far as Dunedin, N.Z. Then there was the matter of his accounts becoming tangled; an audit was made, and his resignation from the expedition accepted, it was reported. He remained m New Zealand for some time, and returned to New York some time m April.

"His return was followed by domestic difficulties, due, it is said, to changing his religion, according to the police. His wife, Mrs. Feme Grant Brophy, and his ten-year-old son, Richard (jun.), went to