REVOLTING MURDER

Taranaki Daily News, 11 April 1935, Page 10

REVOLTING MURDER

GIRL CHOKED WITH STOCKING. POLICE ARREST YOUNG MAN. By Telegraph— Press - Assn.—Copyright. Melbourne, April 9. A young man has been charged with having murdered Ethel Belshaw. The inquiry following the discovery of Miss Belshaw’s body, was one of the most extensive ever undertaken by the Victorian police. Fifty, suspects have been questioned in the past three months.

The victim of one of the most revolting murders in the. history of Victoria, Ethel Belshaw, of Lower Tarwin, was found dead in a lonely patch of scrub half a. mile from the pier at Inverloch on January 2. • She had been gagged with one ot ner stockings, and the other. stocking was wound tightly round her neck. Her hands and legs had been tied. The girl was last seen buying an ice cream at Inverloch about 5 p.m. on the Tuesday. A search was made by the police when she could not be found, and bells were tolled continuously during the night to guide her to the township. A search party looked for her throughout the night. Her body hvas found at 10.30 a.m. by a camper. . The girl had been assaulted. A, preliminary medical examination disclosed that the tying of a stocking round her neck was not a' likely cause of suffocation. The girl’s face was bruised and cut. Scratches on her thighs and arms, and marks on the ground, suggested that she was murdered at a place other than where she was found, and that the body was dragged to the scrub.