VICTIM IDENTIFIED

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16339, 13 May 1927, Page 7

VICTIM IDENTIFIED

LONDON TRUNK TRAGEDY DETECTIVES UNEARTH CLUES (N.Z., and A.P.A., and Sun.) LONDON, May 12. The victim of the trunk murder has been identified as Minnie Barnatti, wife of an Italian waiter. Detectives early this morning were still out following clues. There is also a development connecting the man who deposited the trunk in the cloakroom with a recent occupant of lodgings in the Clapham district, and a development at Hastings, where a resident named Frank Austin, a retired musical artist, made a statement to the police. He is pledged to secrecy, but it is believed there in a connecting link between himself and the trunk, according to the description and the photograph. The significance of the statement lies in the fact that the trunk was labelled “F. Austin, to St. Leonards.” The famous pathologist, Sir Bernard Spilsbury, as the result of a further examination of the remains, expressed the opinion that the woman was rendered unconscious by blows from some heavy instrument, and was afterwards smothered by the murderer, who was impatient, to finish his work.