PAWNBROKER SHOT

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18236, 3 November 1933, Page 7

PAWNBROKER SHOT

IN MELBOURNE SHOP MAN CAUGHT AFTER CHASE MELBOURNE, October 26. Mr. Maurice Langley, 75, was fatally shot yesterday afternoon by one of two men who entered i his pawnshop in Elizabeth street, Melbourne. A man was chased by Mr. Harry Langley, 65, Mr. Maurice Langley’s brother, and was tured. A remarkable feature of the tragedy was that the second man was not seen escaping by passers-by. Apparently he mingled unobtrusively with the crowd. When the police arrived at the pawnshop they experienced difficulty in holding back a large crowd from the doorway. Inside the shop Mr. Maurice Langley was dying. A .32 calibre revolver was lying a few .feet from his head. A short elderly man whom Mr. Harry Langley captured calmly smoked a cigarette, while Mr. Harry Langley waved his arms to keep the crowd back. Mr. Harry Langley, who has been in ill-health for some time, was violently agitated for many hours after the shooting. Describing what happened, he said: “We were all having lunch in the dining-room behind the shopy-my brother, my wife, Mrs. Carter (a sister-in-law), and myself—when we heard someone enter the shop. Maurice went to see who it was. We heard absolutely no conversation whatever. Then there was the noise of a scuffle, and the faint report of a shot. I ran into the shop and saw my brother tottering as he fell. He pointed to one of the two men and said, ‘I am shot.’ There were two men in the doorway of the shop. One was short and the other a bit taller. I sprang at the short man and he fell in the doorway, but before I could grab him he scrambled to his feet and ran outside. I caught him a few doors up and took him back to the shop, where we held him until a constable arrived. In the meantime the taller man had slipped away in the crowd. I think that the two men came into the shop thinking that Maurice would he on his own, with the intention of holding him up and stealing money or jewellery. There was a considerable amount of money on the premises. Later Robert von Geyer, 50, painter, of Argyle square, Carlton, was charged with having murdered Maurice Langley.