STRANGE MURDER MYSTERY TRIAL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18991, 10 February 1930, Page 11

STRANGE MURDER MYSTERY TRIAL.

POSTMAN SAID TO HAVE BEEN SEWN IN BLANKET. (United Press Assn.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) LONDON, February 8. Laurence Griffin, a postman of the Free State, disappeared at Stradbally, County Galway, on Christmas night. The police searched for the body in a neighbouring mine shaft, but were unsuccessful. The sensational allegation that Griffin was sewn up in a blanket while still alive, and thrown over a bridge or down a mine shaft, was made by the State’ Prosecutor, Mr Finlay, in the Waterford Police Court, when ten inhabitants of Stradbally, including Thomas Cashin, school teacher, Edmund Morrissey, labourer, Patrick, Whelan, hotelkeeper, his wife, son and daughter, and two civic guards, were charged with murdering Griffin and conspiring to dispose of the body. The prosecution asserted that the missing man was knocked down by Cashin during a quarrel in a hotel bar. He hit his head on the stove, after which he neither moved nor spoke. The injured man, while still living, was sewn up in a blanket brought by Mrs Whelan, placed in Cashin’s car, and disposed of. A number of persons were present, but no one thought of sending for a doctor. The thought uppermost in all their minds was that they must get rid of Griffin. Accused pleaded not guilty, and were remanded.