TAXI-DRIVER MURDERED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23831, 10 June 1939, Page 15

TAXI-DRIVER MURDERED

BODY IN ROADSIDE DITCH i (From Our Own Correspondent) SYDNEY. May 26. , Howard Thomas Chambers, aged 74, a Brisbane taxi-driver, was found dead near the main Sputhport road, with two bullet wounds in the back of his head. The body was lying in a ditch 12 yards from the road, 16 miles from Brisbane. Police believe that Chambers was shot some distance from where the body was found. The same evening the police detained an 18-year-old Sydney youth at Bangalow (N.S.W.), who was walking on the Byron Bay-Bangalow road. Chambers's cab. a black sedan, was found abandoned four miles from Mullumbimby. Pools of blood in the car suggested that the body was carried some distance before disposal. The police state that Chambers must have been still alive when he wa3 dragged from the cab. The hair was singed around one wound in the base of the skull, indicating that the bullet was fired from close range. The police think that Chambers was shot by a man sitting in the back of the cab or that a man stood by the side of tha cab and shot him while his attention was distracted.

About 8 o'clock on Tuesday, ijight .Chambers was seen in the cab with a passenger driving past a Brisbane rank. The passenger was sitting in the front seat with Chambers, and seemed to be searching for someone along the footpath. Officials at a border toll bridge saw his car approaching at a terrific speed an hour later. When the driver saw the attendant he pulled up and turned back towards Brisbane. The car approached the bridge at a moderately slow speed half an hour later. The driver paid the toll and passed over towards the border. The police think the car must have contained Chambers's body when it first approached the bridge. A fisherman going to Mullumbimby from Byron Bay about 6 o'clock on Wednesday morning was stopped by a well-dressed young man who asked for a lift, as his car was'out of petrol. He was told there was a petrol station close by. He then said he. wanted to get to Mullumbimby in a hurry and that he would send a man for the car. The young man got a lift to Muliunv bbxrinr.