SEVERE INJURIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26693, 12 February 1948, Page 6

SEVERE INJURIES

DEATH OF YOUNG BOY BODY FOUND IN SCRUB BLOOD-STAINED STONE NEARBY P.A. CHRISTCHURCH, Feb. 11. The body of Leslie James Boswell, aged three and a-half, who was missing on Monday afternoon, was found at 11.30 a.m. today among dense scrub below Clifton terrace, Sumner. child had suffered severe head in-' juries, and a blood-stained stone was found near where the body was lying. When it was reported to the police yesterday morning that the boy was missing search parties of detectives and uniformed police were organised. Areas at and near Sumner were searched, but particular attention was directed to the locality when a child’s sun hat was found in a culvert off Clifton terrace last evening. The search was interrupted by darkness, but when it was resumed this morning the searchers concentrated on a large patch of gorse and lupins. While they were cutting their way through this scrub with axes and slashers Constable E. Dwen came upon the body of the child lying close to a fence about 25 feet from the side of the road and down the face of a steep bank. The central police station was notified and Superintendent H. Scott, Inspector T. Holmes and Senior Detective F. J. Brady, accompanied by Dr D. T. Stewart, a pathologist at the Christchurch Public Hospital, and Sergeant J. B. Kearton, the official police photographer, left for Clifton terrace. The coroner, Mr H. P. Lawry, was out of Christchurch, but the police got in touch with him and he arrived shortly after 1 p.m. After the coroner and the pathologist had viewed the body and the area had been thoroughly searched by the police the body was removed to the public mortuary at Christchurch, where a post-mortem examination was to be made by Dr Stewart. When Constable Dwen found the body it was lying face downward, and a trail of blood extended from a few feet below the level of the road to where the body was found. An inquest will be opened at 8.30 a.m. today for identification and will then be adjourned. The child’s step-father, Mr W. E. Cooper, said in a statement to the police to-day that he and his wife took the boy to Sumner on Monday. He took the boy towards the shops at the tram terminus at Scarborough and about 4.30 p.m. the boy left him to return to Mrs Cooper, who was sitting on the beach 400 or 500 yards away.