Week Has Passed Since Body Of Gwen Scarff Was Found In Lupins At Burwood.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18188, 22 June 1927, Page 9

Week Has Passed Since Body Of Gwen Scarff Was Found In Lupins At Burwood.

GIRL’S MOVEMENTS IMMEDIATELY PRIOR TO HER DEATH SHROUDED IN MYSTERY.

It is a week ago to-day since the body of Gwen Scarff, a domestic servant, aged twenty years, was discovered by a boy in the lupins at Burwood. No arrest has yet been made. Indeed, the mystery surrounding the death of the girl is growing deeper every day, and inquiries at the Central Police Station are invariably met with the reply: “ There is nothing to report.” _ No effort is being spared by the police to bring the murderer to justice. They have taken statements from several men, but Miss Scarff’s movements from the time she left the Hotel Federal in the evening of Tuesday, June 14, until her body was discovered by Eric Mugford on the following day remain unknown.

Miss Scarff told a resident of Cashmere, whom she had known for some time, that she would be leaving for the north on Wednesday, June 8, the day on which she left the home of Mrs Derisley Wood, where she had been employed. She called on the man on the day mentioned and said: “We’re going north to-night.” He did not ask who sloe meant by “we.” She had spoken so much of a certain taxi-driver, he said, that he took it for granted that she meant this man. When Miss Scarff visited a friend’s home in Sydenham on Sunday, June 12,. she told her that it was her intention to leave for Wellington with a certain taxi-man the following evening. She mentioned the man’s name, said that he was married with a family and was seventeen years her senior. “We are going to go over to Lyttel-

ton in a car,” she said, “so that we will not be seen. He is making airangements with a friend to take us.” Though the woman, in whom the girl confided her intentions, endeavoured to persuade her not to go north with the man, she would not change her attitude. She told her friend that the man had told her that he would not oppose a divorce action if proceedings were instituted by his wife. “She was a very simple girl in man) ways.” the girl’s friend said yesterday. “If you told her a fairy story, she would believe it.” Miss Scarff revealed to the woman why she was going north. She stated definitely that she was going to Wellington on the day following her conversation, Monday, June 13.