THE RUNANGA MURDER.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 88, 12 July 1918, Page 3

THE RUNANGA MURDER.

EGGERS’ HISTORY. It may bo remembered that when Eggers, the West Coast murderer, stood at the' steps of the scaffold to expiate his crime, lie assured the officiating clergyman that he was not the man who had fatally shot Conlthard, the driver of the car which was carrying the two mine officials with the men’s wages. This denial on the edge of eternity may have raised a doubt in the minds of some people whether the police had really tracked down the murderer. It is asserted however, that the police authorities have in. their possession a letter writ- 1 ten by Eggers, in which ho virtually j confessed his crime. This letter was j to have been delivered by a friend to | the woman with whom Eggers had been living, but it did not reach its intended destination. It is also stat ed that Eggers, when ho was in tho condemned cell, made repeated efforts to obtain the delivery to him of a small portion .of strychnine secreted by him in a small box containing rare coins, which box had passed into the hands of the police, and that he even < communicated with the Justice Do- j partment, protesting against the j treatment he was receiving. The po- j lice officials, however, quietly but j surely frustrated all his effects in this ' direction. Tho police are believed to have a suspicion that this was not tho first time Eggers had done a man to death. Some years back a man who was known to have some £3OOO in his possession was fatally shot in Sydney; but the murderer was never appro bended,, nor was the money recovered. A . certain suspicion attaches to Eg gers in connection with this murder. He was in Sydney at that time, and shortly afterwords arrived in the dominion. So far as the police were able to ascertain, he had done no work for two or three years prior to the' West Coast; murders. If he had lived during this time on the proceeds of a previous crime the exhaustion of his funds may havA compelled him to tho perpetration of tho murder of which he was convicted. Tho threads of Eggers’s career have now been fathered together. Ho war ,I ' r ‘ -~ed

under His correct name, and he born in South Australia of German parents. He had appeared in court twice before—-on the second occasion on a charge of forgery, of which he was found guilty, and for which ho received a sentence of two years’ im-

prisonment. Th.e allocation of the reward of £SOO, offered by thp Crown for evi deuce that would lead to the conviction of the murder of the lad Coulthard, for which Eggevs was hanged and of Mr Hall, the second victim in the West Coast shooting ease, has not yet been finally determined by the Justice Department. It is supposed that some nine persons will participate in the distribution. The official opinion is said to be that if Mr M. O’Brien, the licensee of the Em pire Hotel, in Christchurch, had not had a doubt cast on his suspicions when he first met Eggers in his hotel ho would have secured the full reward. When Eggers went to the hotel ho deposited a portmanteau in the office. The licensee, having occasion to go to his safe, lifted the portmanteau out of his way. The weight of it and the fact that the man just arrived from the West Coast caused a suspicion to flash through Mr O’Brien’s mind. His suspicions were not shared By those to whom ho confidently men tinned them, and he did not communicate, with the police that evening, fhibsequently it was Mr O’Brien who, very materially clinched the suspicions, which at the time of the arrest were suspicions only, that had been formed regarding Eggers.