MAN ARRESTED ON MURDER CHARGE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17729, 26 December 1925, Page 1

MAN ARRESTED ON MURDER CHARGE.

MELBOURNE POLICE FIND HENRY TACKE ■ HIDING IN SAND AT SORRENTO. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.—Aus. and N.Z. Cable Assn. MELBOURNE, December 23. Henry Taekc, a middle-aged man, has been arrested at Sorrento on the charge of murdering Mrs Currell, who was shot by a caller while standing at the door talking to him. The police surprised the man, who was practically covered in sand in which he had scooped a sleeping place. He was in a very weak condition. His visits to the local store to buy food aroused suspicion, and led to his arrest. Mrs Currell was formerly employed hv Tacke, hut left him and started business. He constantly worried her to return, and it is alleged her refusal ended in the shooting.

STORY OF THE CRIME, SYDNEY, December 17. The dramatic shooting affray at St Kilda on Tuesday night, as a result of which Mrs Ray Currell (thirty-one) is dead, seems to have been as mysterious as most recent Melbourne crimes have been. The woman was shot at the door of her home in Mary Street, St Hilda. A few weeks ago Mr and Mrs Currell took the cottage, and, with the object of augmenting their income—Mr Currell is employed as a temporar} 7- barman—let part of the cottage to a man named Coker and his wife and two children. The dead woman’s husband tells a dramatic story. They were in bed at 10.30, he says, in a small partitioned area on the front verandah, when there was a knock at the front door. Someone asked for Mrs Currell, and she went to the door and opened it. “ Oh, it’s you! ” she said, indicating that she knew her caller. “ What do you want?” An argument started, and Currell, who told the police he knew the man’s voice also, got out of bed and went to the door. lie remonstrated with the man at the door for troubling his wife at that hour of the night, but the visitor took no notice, and continued to argue with Mrs Currell. They moved to the end of the verandah, and the visitor drew a revolver and shot Mrs Currell twice. She staggered into the hallway and collapsed. Currell, who says some shots were fired at him also, ran to the back of the house, climbed through a window and went to his wife’s assistance. She was dead by that time, however. Neighbours who witnessed the shooting state that after he had fired several shots the visitor walked cahnly down the path, shut the gate after him, and

strolled along the street in the direction of the beach, placing something in his pocket. They followed him for some distance, but he broke into a run and disappeared into the darkness. The experience of a family in the villa next door was terrifying also. They were seated in the sitting-room when a bullet crashed through the window and embedded itself in the wall on the opposite side of the room. Police are satisfied that six shots were fired altogether. Four entered Mrs Currell’s body, and two were fired at her husband. Later inquiries elicited the information that for some time a man had been trying to get Mrs Currell to go into business with him. She was a very clever mannequin, and had at one time been employed in that capacity by Messrs Buckley and Nunn. She was -in business herself as Bentley and Kay, costumieres. Melbourne detectives arc seeking Henry Tacke (sixty), an importer, who is said to have been a constant visitor to Mrs Currell when she was living in a flat at St Ivilda some months ago. He had been living only a few doors away from the house in Mary Street, and is said to have been keeping the place under close surveillance every night. Tacke, the police have ascertained, had been living apart from his wife, who objected to his relations with another woman, whose identity had not been disclosed. He was seen lying prone on the grass opposite the Currell home on the night of the tragedy, intently watching every movement in the place. Though he is known to have been in his room for some hours after the shooting on Tuesday night, he left there suddenly, and the detectives have been unable to trace him. Police say that the slayer of Mrs Currell planned the affair deliberately and carried it out in cold blood.