FRIGHTFUL ATROCITY.

Thames Star, Volume LIX, Issue 16787, 14 May 1926, Page 5

FRIGHTFUL ATROCITY.

. MURDER OF DETECTIVES. BODIES CUT TO PIECES. (A. a.nd N.Z. Cable.) PERTH, May 13. The discovery of the bodies of De-tective-Inspector Walsh and Sergeant Pitman, hte missing West Australian police officers, reveals a murder unparalleled in the history of the goldfields. , , .Acting on information supplied by men who were driving thiough the bush, the police arrived at a disused mine shaft near the Coolgardie road, at the bottom of which, sixty feet down, the mutilated bodies of the detectives were found. Both the heads were sawn off. The legs were sawn off below the knees, and again above the knees. The trunks were also sawn in half, and the bodies were charred. Evidently the murderers had placed various parts in a furnace in an endeavour to destroy the evidences of the crime. Apparently the murder was committed some distance away from the mine and the bodies conveyed to the mine in a cart, fresh wheel tracks leading up to and away from the mine. At the bottom of the shaft, covering the bodies, were found fire bricks, gold scales, and fire bars, and a tonga furnace used for smelting _ ore, and several other parts of an illicit gold treatment plant. It is known that the two detectives had been watching the plant somewhere south of Kalgoorlie. The heads of the men were missing, but they were identified by the clothes found with .the remains.