SUSPECT ARRESTED.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 375, 17 March 1932, Page 5

SUSPECT ARRESTED.

Long Search in Murder Case. DETECTIVES AS SWAGGERS. (Special to the “ Star.”) SYDNEY, March 5. 1 After three months of relentless | search the police last night arrested a | man and charged him with the murder ; of Alexander Barrie, 89, in his home at j Windsor Street, Paddington, on Decern- | ber 14. Two detectives, dressed as swagmen, ! trailed a suspect from the border of Queensland to that of Victoria. A young policeman played a leading part in the police search. It was his first job as detective. He walked and rode or drove over 100 miles, and then having found his quarry, boiled a billy with him on the road near Gosford and waited for his comrades to relieve him of his charge. On December 14 last Alexander Barrie was bound and gagged, and deadly wounds were inflicted with the butt end of a revolver. ITis wife. Mary, 85, was also bound hand and foot. Since then the police have been seeking two men who might enable them to sheet home the crime. A Clue. Detective-Superintendent Mackay and Detective-Inspector Miller, who is in charge of the area in which the crime was committed, spent many days in their efforts to find one link upon which a chain of evidence might be forged. Then, one day they received a clue in the Paddington district, which led them to a building in the city, where they found an old suit of clothes stained and tattered. Finally the detectives found a blurred snapshot of a suspect. Detectives Swasbrick and Leary, with nothing more than that to guide them, that clay set off along the roads which led them to lonely spots, first north, then south. Simultaneously with the departure of these two detectives, who were dressed as swaggies, and carried blankets, the C. 1.8. were gathering facts which aided them in supplying the two men on the road with valuable information. It was while he was returning from a fruitless search in the far north that Detective Leary gained information which finally led him to the end of his search. A few days ago he “ jumped the rattler ” with a bunch of out-of-works. He left the train at Gosford, and con-

I trived to single out one of the men i to accompany him. j By a stroke of luck Detective Leary i had left his car in the district. He j and the suspect walked four miles to j the car and drove toward Gosford. j As a result, at the Central Court to-day, William Morton, 26. labourer, ! was charged with having feloniously j and maliciously murdered Alexander Frederick Barrie in Windsor Street, Paddington, on December 14. It was j stated the Coroner’s inquiry had been set down for March 21. j The Magistrate remanded Morton to : March 21. Morton did not ask for bail.