THE TANT.AKOOLA CASE

Otago Witness, Issue 2978, 12 April 1911, Page 25

THE TANT.AKOOLA CASE

EDMONDSON CONVICTED

' Six YEARS’ IMPRISONMENT,

ADELAIDE, April 10. Edmondson has been sentenced to six years’ imprisonment with hard labour for killing 76 sheep with intent to steal them.

On December 4 Frank Osborne and C. F. and J. P. Burchard left Tantanoola to shoot snipe on Lake Bonney flats. While searching in Mr James Chant’s big scrub paddock Osborne’s attention was arrested by a dreadful stench. He traced the origin of the smell to a dense clump of ti-tree half a mile away. The thicket seemed impenetrable, but among the fringe of low shrubs Osborne noticed a well worn path winding through the undergrowth. He followed it, and was astonished to find that it led to the face of a high palisade of ti-tree. Behind the thick bush, cunningly planted in the mud, he discovered a narrow race loading to the heart of the jungle. Osborne pluckily ventured into the winding, passage for a distance of 25 yards, and found a corral 20ft by 30fb, hewn out of the solid jungle. Freshly killed sheep and lambs wero strewn in all directions. On overhead wires drawn from wall to wall long lines of skins were drying. Osborne left the spot, and returned with C. Burchard, who had also been investigating. They counted 15 skins on the wires and 15 sheep just killed. Burchard waded-to the end of the corral, and found another race leading deeper into the labyrinth. He followed it, and found a vertible chamber of horrors. In a larger corral, piled two and three feet deep, were the bodies of 42 sheep and lambs, freshly killed, and more wire and skins. All the sheep bore Mr James Chant’s brand. Only a couple of days had elapsed since the killing, but innumerable bones and skulls and putrid filth revealed the magnitude, of the operations. J. Burchard found the stench too strong, and was unable to venture through the first passage.

The Miilicent representative of the South Australian Registrar visited the locality, ■which is seven miles from Tantanoola and 15 from Miilicent. The thieves had chosen an ideal retreat. The nearest dwelling is several miles away, and the place is rarely visited, except to muster sheep three or four times in the year. The paddock lies between a long belt of impenetrable titree swamp and hummocks. It is dotted with shrubs and tussocks, in which an army could be concealed. Several hundred sheep wore - grazing in the locality. The plant would probably never have been discovered but for the chance search of the party in the vicinity for snipe, as the stench would not have been noticeable a few days earlier or later.

The greatest rare was taken to preservo the natural appearance of the undergrowth. The beaten track is invisible, except near the entrance, where fresh trees have been regularly cut and planted in the mud, tho opening to the race having been most ingeniously cloaked. The race is 30in wide. The cutting of ft has been a heavy undertaking, as the ti-trees are om in diameter, and there is no room to swing an axe. Heavier timber provided solid footing, and the lighter branches were interwoven with growing stuff at the sides. In the first yard the walls tower 12ft high. The second corral is larger and more carefully built. Evidently most of the slaughtering has been done here. Sheep clearly branded were left rotting until the wool could be plucked. Everywhere the place was littered with mouldering carcases and whitened bones and skulls, which could nob have been bleached to such an extent iin less than three seasons.' The place apparently had been used for years. At the far end a way of escape in ease of surprise had been clevej-Iy fashioned with bushea overhead, affording shelter from tho rain if forced to remain in hiding.