SYDNEY MYSTERY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24254, 23 March 1940, Page 12

SYDNEY MYSTERY

STRANGLED WOMAN IN BUSH UNHAPPY SOUTH AFRICAN VICTIM (From Our Own Correspondent' SYDNEY, Mar. 13. Detectives have spent most of this week investigating the death of a young woman through strangulation. Early it seemed that murder had been committed, but investigators are almost convinced that the woman committed suicide.

The victim was an Afrikaander, Cornelia Elizabeth Johanna Wilhemina van Tonder, 23 years of age. She was found with one of her own stockings bound twice round her neck and tied with a granny knot. She was in the bush near the harbour at Mosman. Doctors were unable to find any mark of violence, and, except for a broken surpender, probably caused when, the stocking was removed, her clothing was intact.

Miss van Tonder was employed as a domestic by Mrs H. S. B. Young, whose home is about a-quarter of a mile from where the body was found. She was one of a family of five from a country centre near Capetown. Thirteen months ago she was brought to Sydney by a Mrs G. Scott, also of Mosman, as nurse for an infant, after she had been employed by Mrs Scott for some time in South Africa. She could not speak English well, but could read it excellently. A few months ago she left the Scott family to go to Mrs Young.

Miss van Tonder had last Friday afternoon off, and she left Mrs Young's home apparently in good spirits to have her hair attended at a Mosman beauty parlour. Police established that she left the salon at 6.15 p.m. She was seen alone between that time and 8 p.m., when she went to a picture theatre. She did not return to the Youngs' home that night. Shortly after 11 p.m. on Saturday, a man, who refused to give his name and has not since communicated with the police, telephoned the ambulance and said that during the afternoon his son had been walking through the bush and had seen the bo&v of a woman under a rock. He declined other information, and did not explain why he had waited several hours before reporting the matter. Ambulance officers and police searched the bush, but the body was not found until 8 a.m. on Sunday. The dead woman was lying on her back and was partly concealed by dry bushes.

Further investigations led to amazing discoveries. Detectives learned that Miss van Tonder lived near Capetown, and was distressed by a broken engagement. Since coming to Australia, she had been frequently melancholy .and had twice threatened to commit suicide. She was an avid reader of mystery and morbid stories, spending most of her leisure over the novels. In addition to talking about taking her life, she once swallowed a bottle of medicine containing a potent drug which she had been ordered to take only in small doses. She often said that, as all her relatives were in South Africa, she had nothing to live for. For some time she had been under treatment by a doctor for an ailment which at times caused her great pain.

Detectives sought medical opinion whether she could have strangled herself with her stocking, and this supported the police suicide theory.