SENTENCED TO DEATH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 15857, 1 September 1913, Page 5

SENTENCED TO DEATH

MURDER OF MISS MITCHELL. Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. BRISBANE, August 30.' Ernest Austin has been found guilty of the murder of Ivy Mitchell, and Ims been sentenced to death.

The body of Ivy Mitchell, a girl of 11, was found in some bushes at Samtord, about 25 miles (rom Brisbane, on June 8. The child visited a neighbour's that day, and as she did not return at dusk a search was mode, with the result that her body was found nsar the Parker State School, with the throat cut.

A large number of police motored to the scene of the tragedy, ajid the next morning a man who had been working at a farm about three iniics from the scene of the murder ■ was placed under arrest, and charged with tho miujder. It transpired that tho little girl left Frisch's farm, where she had spent tho day, about 4.50 p.m., and was accompanied part of tho way by Mary Frisch, aged seven. Subsequently the trades of Ivy Mitchell, who was barefooted, were seen along the ,road, on the homeward journey. Her tracks were afterwards joined by the footprints of 'a man in bag bluoher boots. The two walked side by side until tho Parker State School was reached. Tho ruffian then evidently seized her, dragged her into tho scrub, a couple of hundred yards off the road, and killed her. The murderer seems then to have proceeded to the tank at the school and washed. the blood from his hands.

As soon as the body was discovered a search party of police set out and scoured the country, and Ernest Austin (30) was arrested and charged with the murder.

Austin accounted for some blood on his clothes arid a cut on his finger by a statement that he had been killing calves, but his employer testified that the accused 'eft his employ three days before the murder, and that he had not killed any calves.