FREE STATE MURDER CASE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20965, 3 March 1930, Page 7

FREE STATE MURDER CASE

ACCUSED FURTHER REMANDED '•3UITLESS SEARCH FOR BODY. i (United Press Association.) (By Electric Telegraph—’Copyright.) LONDON, February 23. The 10 persons accused of murder in connection with the death of Laurence Griffin were again remanded, but it is believed that unless substantial evidence is forthcoming to-morrow at least eight of them will be bailed out. Preparations are being made to light a bonfire on the village green as a welcome to the prisoners on-their homecoming. The Stradbally police have searched every bog, lake and stream in the district without result, and they are now digging in the graveyards in the belief that; the postman may have been deposited in a recently-dug grave. The searchers dug up coffins, but did notexhume bodies.

Laurence Griffin, a Free State postman, disappeared at Stradbally, .County Galway, on Christmas Night, and' a police search for the body in the neighbourhood of a mine shaft was unsuccessful. A sensational allegation that Griffin was sewn, up in a blanket while he was still alive and thrown over a. bridge or down the mine shaft was made by the state Prosecutor in Waterford Police Court, when 10 inhabitants of Stradbally, including Thomas Cashin, a school teacher, Edmund Morrissey, a labourer, Patrick Whelan, an hotelkeeper, his wife, son and daughter, and two civic guards were charged with murdering Griffin and conspiring to dispose of his body. The prosecution asserted that the missing man was knocked down by Cashin during a quarrel in an hotel bar, and hit his head on a stove, after which he neither moved nor spoke. The injured man, while still living, was sewn up in a blanket which was brought by Mrs Whelan, placed in Cashin’a car, and disposed of. There were a number of persons present, but no one thought of sending for a doctor. The thought uppermost in all minds was that they must get rid of Griffin. The accused pleaded not guilty. »