TANGLED SKEIN

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 19883, 9 March 1939, Page 5

TANGLED SKEIN

PIHA FIRE MYSTERY

PART OF SKULL IN RUINS

IDENTIFICATION PROBLEM

DOTH JAWS MISSING

(Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, this day

From the tangled skein of facts and theories surrounding the Piha fire of February 12, when a bach was burned to the ground, emerges the information that both the upper and lower jaws were missing from the piece of skull found buried among the ashes. This fact is considered to make it more difficult to identify the remains as those of Gordon Robert McKay, an Australian, who is believed to have perished in the fire. No teeth were found. Yet a dentist who extracted nine teeth from Mr. McKay’s lower jaw on the morning before the fire said yesterday that the fused-porcelain teeth in "the missing man’s upper artificial denture would have withstood the intense heat of a crematorium. It has been reported in some quarters that if Mr. McKay's lower jaw had' been recovered from the 'heap of ashes of charred wood and debris when the police made their exhaustive search of the ruins, Dr. W. Gilmour, pathologist and dentist, should be able to identify it. Bony Structure

'The difficulty is that both jaws are missing. All the police found was a section of bony structure that might have been either a section of the back or front of a skull. In the cavity was some material not yet positively identified.

It has also been reported that while the police were searching the ruins of the bach they unearthed a gold signet ring believed to be the property of Mr. McKay. However, inquiries yesterday suggested that, while a ring was found, its intrinsic and evidential value were practically worthless. The ring was found among the ashes. Some faint scratches on its surface may, or may not, have been someone’s initials.

No hint as to the findings of Dr. Gilmour and Mr. Kenneth MacCormick, who are associated in the examination of the remains, has yet been given to the Auckland police.