SEQUEL TO TRUCK MYSTERY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20897, 29 November 1937, Page 8

SEQUEL TO TRUCK MYSTERY

SUCCESS OF POLICE ACTIVITIES ARRESTS ON MURDER CHARGES United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Received November 28, 6.30 p.m.) MELBOURNE, November 28. A development in the truck mystery occurred on Saturday when the police, acting on private information, arrested Matthew Francis O’Keefe (37), a slaughterman, of South Melbourne, ou a charge of murdering John Dempsey, whose body was found in a sack at West Kinglake with an abandoned truck nearby. The body of John Thomas Dempsey (39), driver of the transport truck which mysteriously disappeared, was found in a sack burled only a few feet from his truck. TWO ARRESTS MADE SUCCESS OF POLICE ACTIVITIES United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Received November 29, 12.15 am.) MELBOURNE, November 28. Two men were arrested, charged with the murder of John Thomas Demsey. The arrested men are Roy McFarlane, aged 32, of Newmarket, and Frances O'Keeffe, aged 37, of North Melbourne. O'Keeffe was arrested in bed at midnight on Saturday. McFarlane was detained at Beaufort, 100 miles from Melbourne. The arrests followed the most intense and widespread investigation in the history of the Victorian police. Demsey was driving a truck carrying wool valued at £3OO from Bendigo to Melbourne on October 11 when he disappeared. No further news of him or the truck was heard till the truck was accidentally found by picnickers, hidden in dense bush at Kinglake West, 42 miles from Melbourne, on November 1. On the following day the body was found buried in a sack near the truck. The police investigated nearly every part of the State in an endeavour to trace the stolen wool.