ARREST MADE AT OKOKE

Taranaki Daily News, 16 August 1929, Page 8

ARREST MADE AT OKOKE

GOES QUIETLY WITH POLICE SLEPT IN FARM SHED NEAR PEHU LONG SEARCH ENDS PEACEFULLY. Having wandered with a slasher over the hilly, bush-clad country between -- Okoke and Uruti during the past fortnight, the man whose movements have been puzzling. the settlers was taken quietly into custody yesterday and brought to New Plymouth. It is understood lie may appear on several charges in the Police Court this morning. He slept on Wednesday night in a shed on Mr. W. Hargrave’s property on the Piko Road, near Pehu. The Hargrave’s gave him breakfast yesterday morning and he accepted work on the property. In the meantime Constable Mills was communicated with at Okoke and he arrived to take the man in charge about 1 p.m. The man was known in the district as Johnson, but that is thought not to be his real name, according to the Okoke correspondent of the News, who telephoned. a message last night. He had. been working for Mr. P. Darke’ at Okoke for -some months and is believed to be ’ about 30 years of age. When he reached the Hargrave’s’farm he was wearing two pairs of trousers, two shirts and a coat. His face had not been shaved for many days. His own boots had been worn through and he -was wearing a pair said to belong to Mr. A. B. Jones, whose house at Okoke has been empty while he and his family have been living •at ■ Sentry Hill. Liberally spattered with mud. collected during his long tramps over the hills, the man presented a queer sight. He had left his slasher somewhere in the country at the back of Mr. Hargrave’s farm, it is sa’id. Rumours concerning his movements have been plentiful during the last day or so.' - One report said he was in Uruti on Wednesday. Another was that someone was heard -making a disturb- z ance behind Mr. Whittaker’s house. It was believed the noise was made by the man using his slasher, but a subsequent search failed to disclose him. Constable Mills and Mr. Jones left Waitara for_Okoke on Wednesday night and searched the ,Kaka Road district until 3 a.m., when they went to bed in Mr. Jones’ house. It was said that the man had been seen to enter a patch of bush in that locality. Apparently he had then followed the track across the hills to Mr. Hargrave’s farm, and while the policeman and his companion were scouring the country he was sleeping peacefully in the shed seven miles away. Interviewed in New Plymouth last night by a News reporter, Mr. Jones said that the constable and he resumed the search at 5 a.m. yesterday and traversed the hills between Mr. Jones’ farm and the Kaka Road. They 'saw tracks made about three days before. About II a.m. they telephoned the post office at Okoke and were informed that the man was tfn Mr. Hargrave’s property. When they arrived there at 1 p.m. the man did not make any demonstration, said Mr. Jones. At first he denied everything, and later, it is alleged, he made certain statements. As reported in the Daily News yesterday, a yearling heifer was found slaughtered in a gully on the property of Mr. A. B. Jones on Wednesday. It® head and a hind leg had been completely severed and its liver cut out. Constable Mills and Mr. Tom Wright traversed the bush country between Okoke and Uruti on Tuesday, but their search produced no result.