Woman Is Shot Dead In Darlinghurst Flat.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17905, 22 July 1926, Page 8

Woman Is Shot Dead In Darlinghurst Flat.

SKIPPER AND SUPPOSED WAR HERO CONFESSES THAT HE COMMITTED THE CRIME. (Special to the “ Star.”) SYDNEY, July 12. Sunlight streamed through pink curtains and flooded the little sitting-room of the flat. Near the window a phonograph played a dreamy waltz. Lying on the carpet in the pool of sunlight was the body of an attractive woman. Blood stained a thick pile carpet.

Such was the picture in a flat at HarMansions, at Clapton Place, Darlinghurst, this morning. A few minutes earlier Ruth Clarkson, a handsome, fair-haired woman in the. early thirties, had been shot dead. A man had hurried from the flat—No. 11—and dashed down two flights of stairs. Not long afterwards Captain Maurice Strymans walked into the Darlinghurst police station and said to the desk sergeant: t/ s^ot woman. Her name is Ruth Clarkson.” He handed across the counter an automatic pistol. The tragedy was dramatically sudden. A telephone mechanic was attending to the telephone installation in a corridor near the flat a little before 11 a.m. He passed the door of No. 11, which was open. Sitting on a chintz-covered settee was a dark man with dark curly hair. He was reading a newspaper. The woman who a few minutes later met her death was arranging some flowers in a vase near the window. There was not a hint of tragedy about the flat at the moment. Drone of Voices. In a flat nearby a painter was at work. He heard two shots in No. 11. and then a thud as if someone had fallen. A steady drone of voices had preceded the shooting. Harrow Mansions is a block of flats not far from Forbes Street. There are five floors, and Flat No. 11, the scene of the tragedy, was most expensively furnished. Inspector Lynch and Inspector Gallaher, Plain-clothes Constable Lynch and Plain-clothes Sergeant Lynch, Plain-clothes Sergeant Stuckey hurried down to the flat when a man had given himself up. They found the door ajar. Inside on a soft flowered carpet lay a woman. She was fully dressed, and blood trickled from her head. Near her on the carpet lay two empty shells of automatic pistol bullets. There was no sign of a struggle. A newspaper which the man had been seen reading had been thrown on . i Morris chair, but nothing else wa; disturbed in the room. A small bronze statuette gleamed o: i a table, the sun bathed the flat in ;. warm glow, the phonograph had beei. playing, and even while the woman

long statement to Plain-clothes Sergeant Lynch. Later on in the day. about 2 p.m., Lynch and Plain-clothes Sergeant Stuckey'’ locked up Maurice Strymans on a charge of murder. The police are seeking to discover the antecedents of the woman. People who occupy’’ other flats at Harrow Mansions say that they saw little of her. No. 11 Flat had always been particularly* quiet, and so far as they’ knew no visitors had been there lately. Unpleasantness. According to statements in possession of the police, unpleasantness had been caused between two men concerning the financial affairs of the dead woman. On this aspect of the case there are likely* to be interesting revelations when the Coroner's inquest is held. An indication of how suddenly the tragedy swooped down on the flat was given by a telephone mechanic. He was adjusting the telephone installation in Flat No. 11. Not more than fifteen minutes before the tragedy* he was actually in the room where the man and woman were sitting. There were no hot words, and no hm* of the drama that was coming. The mechanic went away for a few minutes into another part of the building for a length of wire. When he left the man was smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper. The woman was turning over the pages of a book. Within that fifteen minutes the woman had been shot, a man had given himself up at the police station, which is only* three or four minutes’ walk from the flat. When the mechanic returned to the flat and knocked at the door it was opened by Inspector Lynch. A story reached the police this afternoon that the shooting of the woman was part of a death pact. Further inquiries, however, the police say, discount this rumour. So far as can be learned, the woman % »s said to have been in love with the man who followed her to Sydney from Melbourne. Up till late this afternoon they had discovered no evidence which would suggest that the woman had been married. It was learned, however, that she comes of a Sydney family*, and her mother, air aged woman, was interviewed by* the police in an endeavour to trace the antecedents of her daughter.

was dying it still carried on to the end of the record—a waltz. It was clear that the shooting had been very sudden and had not been preceded by very much argument Outside the window a small bird sang in a cage; across the way white capped nurses moved about in the grounds of a private hospital and the scene was altogether a strange setting for tragedy. To the Hospital. Inspector Lynch found that the woman was still warm, and it was thought that there might just be a faint chance of saving her life. She was rushed to the Sydney Hospital, but long before ’She reached there she was dead. So far as the police could learn she had not occupied the flat for more than a few weeks. It is understood that she had been away for a fortnight to Melbourne, and had just returned. The police learned that a man who is said to have been infatuated with her had followed her to Sydney from Melbourne. Rivals ! It is known that he turned up at the flat. Behind the shooting there is a sensational story dealing with the motive. It has been gathered by the police that there were rivals for the affections of the woman. The police searched the flat for letters or other data to help them to discover the motive of the shooting. They said, however, that little of value had been found except one or two photographs of the woman which show that she had been particularly attractive. They took these to the police station, and also the empty revolver shells. No liquor of any kind was found at the flat. The man who gave himself up at the Darlinghurst police station is short and stocky. He has a rather full florid face and dark eyes. He wore a gold wristlet watch and a brown overcoat of the smartest cut. He was | taken into a room, where he made a j

Charged. At the Central Police Court late this afternoon, Maurice Strymans, aged thirty-eight, a master mariner, was charged with the murder of Ruth Clarkson. Sergeant Ham said that it was alleged that the defendant had been living with the dead woman as man and wife in flats in Clapham Place. This morning, it was said, he came to the police station about 10.45 and. informed the police that he had shot a woman, and handed the police a revolver. The police went to the address given and there found- the body of Ruth Clarkson. Mr Laidlaw, S.M. fto defendant); "I propose to remand you to July 20. Have you anything to say*?” The defendant, a thick-set, rather short, clean-shaven man, who was wearing a new brown overcoat, replied, ‘‘No, sir, that is quite all right.” Bail was refused. The Accused. Captain Maurice Stryman is well known in Newcastle shipping circles. He has been calling at this port as skipper of the Limerick Steamship Company’s Knockfierna, trading in coal and general cargo with Nauru for the last four years. Since Captain Stryman. or Strymans. as he is said to have been known, left the Knockfierna at Melbourne, the chief officer has been promoted to the command, and he skippered the vessel out of Newcastle port this morning for Nauru. Stryman is a Belgian by birth, but lived in Ireland for a number of years, and is a naturalised British subject. He can claim, it is understood, highly distinguished service in the British Air Force, and. in addition to a distinguished fiy-ing service medal, is said to have brought down four Hun planes. He saw some service in Mesopotamia. He speaks and writes eight languages.