THE PHCENIX PARK MURDERER.

Otago Witness, Issue 1608, 16 September 1882, Page 15

THE PHCE NIX PARK MURDERER.

0 The Home correspondent of the Age writes :—: — News came to hand a few days ago that a man had yielded himself up to the police at Caracas, Venezuela, on the charge of being one of the assassins in the Dublin murders of May last. O'Brien, as the man is called, says that he and three others were paid £20 apiece for the perpetration of the vile outrage, and with sinister significance he added, "£2O is worth more to an Irishman than the life of any Englishman." Between this country and Venezuela there is no extradition treaty, but there is little doubt but that the authorities will readily yield up O'Brien to the officers who are going out to fetch him — the more especially as ne stands charged on his own confession, O'Brien is not, however, the first man Who has attempted to take upon his own shoulders the dire, responsibility of the murder of . Lord Frederick Cavendish, and it may be that it will turn out that the selfaccuser -is a mere hare-brained fool seeking notoriety. "Whenever a. sensational crime is committed a great many persons always seem t > come forward anxious to father it with no conceivable motive ; but in the casa of O'Brien the authorities say — on what evidence we as yet know not — that they have reason to believe the story is not without some foundation. O'Brien was arrested at Puerto Cabello, and he is supposed to hay« sailed thither in a barque called the Mr Gladstone, which left Swansea for that port early in May. The murders, it will be remembered, were committed on the evening of the 6th of May, at about 7 o'clock, and if he had got away by the mail train the same evening, it would be quite possible for one of the murderers to take ship at Swansea on the Bth, as O'Brien said ho did. That a mysterious person did sail in the Mr Gladstone seems to be certain ; and what is still more remarkable is that another man, whom the Swansea police arrested, and afterwards discharged, as having been concerned in the murders, is said to have beexi seen in close and frequent conversation with the man who sailed for Puerto Cabello. The other man after his discharge went to Leghorn ; and if O'Brien" is the one who sailed by the Gladstone, it is highly probable that the other, whom the police once had in custody, was one of , his confederates. Inquiries are now being made after him at Leghorn, but it is to be feared that the police will be too late to discover the again suspected Harrison. A member of the Irish Constabulary has been sent to South America, and it is expected that ho will bring O'Brien back with him. Then it may be hoped that the mystery will be cleared up, and one at least removed from the long list of undetected crimes which at present are such a discreditable characteristic of Irish jurisprudence!