A Terrible Murder.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5569, 14 September 1889, Page 2

A Terrible Murder.

A FRictiiTFi T L murder was committed at Pakonham, a township about 30milesfrom Melbourne, last week. Twostation hands, named Robert Fry and John Macnamara, met casually at an hotel in Pakenham, and began drinking together. Macnamara, who was in the incipient stage of delirium t rental*, had been staying at the hotel for some time hefore he met Fry. There is a hut at the back of bush hotels for extra accommodation, and during his '" burst" Macnamara had been the sole occupant of it, but when Fry arrived and asked for accommodation a vacant stretcher was assigned to him. Both men l-etirtxl in the evening, and although strange sounds proceeded from tho hut during the night, no notice was taken of them by the hotel people, as they thought it was only Macnamara in delirium tramois. Early the next morning Macnamara presented himself at the store of tho township and bought a pair of boot. The man was simply saturated with blood from head to foot, and coat, trousers, and shirt were smeared and stained all over. The storekeeper looked at him in astonishment ; but, coining to the conclusion that Macnamara had fallen down in one of his drunken rambles and cut himself badly, thought no more about it. Late in the afternoon two men called at the hut, and getting no response opened the door. To their horror they discovered Fry's body horribly battered and bruised, and bathed in blood, lying just on the threshhold. Information was at once given to the police, and Macnamara wan* .secured aftor a long chase. The murder was committed with a billhook, and must have taken place while Fry was asleep. The corpse presented a horrible sight, the skull being so hacked and hewed as to. have lost all liaco of identity. The left s.ide of the head had been cloven from temple to chin with one fearful gash, and this blow which must have been instantaneously fatal, had been followed by eighteen or twenty others, so that the head on that side was reduced to a crimson pulp of flesh and shrttered bone. When arrested Macnamara, who had recovered from his attack of ifrlirinm trcnieuH, was quite cool ami collected, and denied that he was in any way connected with the crime.