MELBOURNE TRAGEDY

Southland Times, Issue 19157, 29 January 1924, Page 5

MELBOURNE TRAGEDY

DEATH OF FOURTH VICTIM SUSPECT STILL MISSING ROMANTIC CAREER OF SUPPOSED MURDERER (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) MELBOURNE, January 28. Moxham, one of the victims of last week’s shooting in the Gardens, died last night, making the fourth victim. Parry is reported to be in a critical condition. The police suggest that List, the student for whose arrest a warrant has been issued, jumped on the Sydney express with the object of reaching Newcastle en route to America. When visiting America previously, List travelled in a cargo steamer from Newcastle. Particulars, supplied by his relatives, show that List, who was 31 years of age was an inveterate rover. He was net an engineering student as at first described, but rambled from place to place, taking jobs at farm work and timber mills and leaving as it suited him. He was a great student of mathematical problems connected with astronomy and surveying, and had accumulated many volumes connected with these subjects. Some years ago he worked his passage from Australia to America where he spent considerable time tramping about the States and Mexico, doing farming and other work. Then he went to England. He served in the British Army during the Great War. Though a rather small man, List is powerful. He is known as a great "grafter” and had no difficulty in securing work. He returned to Australia in November last, since which time he has been knocking about the country districts, being employed at timber mills and harvesting. A few, days before the tragedy, he left a harvesting job at Laverton, and came to reside with his father and two sisters at Richmond. Since his departure for America, he seldom visited or communicated with home. He was always markedly non-com-municative regarding his business. When leaving home on Wednesday he was asked by his sister if he would return to lunch. He replied “yes,” and has not since been seen by his people. At the time of his departure he appeared normal, except for extreme quietness but his manner was always quiet and morose. The police have discovered that a man on Wednesday purchased a rifle in a bourke street shop for which he paid £7 10/-. The rifle was a weapon of high velocity, the purchaser indicating that he wanted it to shoot "big game.” He refused to take bullets usually used in such a rifle which were of the dum-dum type and make a terrible wound. He took a box of ammunition of a smaller type and signed for it as "Norman List, care Seamen’s Institute.” He is known to have had £lO in his possession when he left home.

In last travelling on board ship, he work ed as a mess room steward.

List continues to elude his pursuers. It is believed that he may cither have drowned himself in the Yarra or in one of the numerous quarry holes at Richmond or made his way to one of the lonely hamlets in the back country, which are without police, since ail members of the force .lave been called to the capital. Another theory' is that he is here disguised as a woman, his figure lending itself admirably to such a disguise. The question has also been raised whether he was the perpetrator of the robberies in a pastrycook’s shop at Malvern on Saturday night. When a young woman assistant was about to shut the shop, a dark unsh iven man with his hat crushed over his eyes entered the shop. He produced a revolver and cried: “For God’s sake give me some cakes.” Holding the revolver against her head, he seized a block of cake, a quantity of pastry and then, ignoring the till, escaped on a motor cycle.