CARRON NOT ALIVE

Taranaki Daily News, 14 April 1932, Page 5

CARRON NOT ALIVE

ECHO OF MURDER TRIAL.

STRANGE COINCIDENCE,

“While the Crown was endeavouring to prove that Louis J. Carron was wilfully murdered by ‘Snowy’ Rowles, runlours were persistent that Carron was alive. Each report was investigated and disproved,” said Mr. A. H. Long, of Auckland, who returned from Australia by the Marama on Tuesday. Mr. Long was a witness in the West Australian murder trial, when Rowles was convicted.

A belated report came that Louis Carron had worked on Wandarrie station during July, 1930. So persistent became the rumour that when evidence on this point was not called at the trial Murchison people asked why. Mr. Murray, manager of Wandarrie station, was not called as a witness because investigations had satisfied the authorities that the man who worked at Wandarrie under the name of Carron was not Carron. An amazing coincidence had occurred.

The story on the Murchison is that when Constable Hearn was first inquiring for Louis Carron he interviewed Mr. Murray, who asked what was the nationality of the missing man. The constable said that Carron was a New Zealander, not knowing • then that Carron was supposed to have, been born in Canada.

Mr. Murray thereupon decided that this Carron could not be the man being sought. Subsequently, however, Mr. Murray read where the missing Carron came from Canada, and he communicated with the authorities. Comparison of descriptions and photographs, however, satisfied him that he did not employ Louis J. Carron, subject of the charge against Rowles. Police believe that the man who worked at Wanda,trie under the name of Carron is now on another part of the Murchison under another name.

The story is that one night in July, 1930, two months after Carron was last seen with Rowles heading for Watson’s gate, on the fence from the. Fountain outcamp, a man rode a bicycle up to Wandarrie station and asked, for a job. He said his name was Carron and that he came from Canada. His station experience, he said, was gained at Wydgee station. The next morning, -as Murray and his daughter came to drive the new man to an outcamp, they noticed him carving with a penknife on the batten of a trailer. Later they saw scratched on the wood the word “Carron,” and the initials “L.J.” or “J.L.”

Three weeks later Carron’s job finished, the story goes, and he informed Mr. Murray that he would return to f Wydgee, or, if there was no work offering there, to Perth. When they looked for the name on the trailer, they found it had been scratched out. Murchison gossip has it that the description of the missing Carron and his photograph resemble the man who left Wandarrie, but the authorities in Perth state Mr. Murray found in fact that his employee was dissimilar from the descriptions and photographs of the man believed to have oeen murdered.

During the trial, too, came a story that Carron was possibly at Carnavon in December, 1930, seven months after his disappearance. Several days elapsed before that report was “blown out.” A telegram was sent to “Dave Harris, Mount Magnet,” from “Leslie Brown, Carnavon,” wiring three pounds. The telegram remained at Mount Magnet unclaimed for more than twelve months. A few weeks ago a postal officer saw the telegram, and it occurred to him that “Leslie Brown” was the real name of Louis Carron. Detective-Sergeant Doyle conducted inquiries, _ eventually establishing that Dave Harris had previously wired to a Leslie Brown—-in no way associated with the New Zealander—and had left Mount Magnet for the back country before the _reply cams.