MURDERED GRAZIER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19983, 28 October 1927, Page 11

MURDERED GRAZIER

SHOT IN A MOTOR-CAR A STRANGE PREMONITION. While driving in a motor-car in a lonely part of the Great Western Road, on the Blaxland side of Valley Heights, New South. Wales, Ronald Lachlan Leslie was murdered on the morning of Wednesday, October 12, by a mysterious passenger whom he hud picked up somewhere on the road. A local resident, who occupies a lonely cottage beside the railway line, within sight of the subway which carries the road under the railway tracks, actually saw the crime committed but did not realise what was being done, and remained unsuspicious until sne read in the newspapers of the discov< of the body at Blaxland. Mr Leslie, who had a strange 'premonition of approaching ,f*eath before he left for his projector! visit to his property at Forbes and Condobolin, set out from his home in Manly at cigu= o’clock in the morning. After vainly endeavouring to persuade his brother to accompany him, he had at length induced his wife to go part of the distance. Between 10 and half-past 10 o’clock a woman on the roadside saw a car go round a bend;. When it had reached the telegraph post nearest a subwaj, she heard three or four revolver shots, which she thought to be the back-fir-ing of the engine. A man sitting beside the driver then pulled himself over the pack scat, in such a manner as to suggest that he was drunk. Immediately the car began to run back toward tnc wall of the subway. It had got out of control when its driver fell forward with three revolver shots in his throat Business people of Blaxland; were able to tell the police that they had seen the blue sedan car driven by Mr Leslie pass through the township, a black ear was also seen about the same I lime, and was observed to return witn- I in half an hour. The spot where rhe car found is off the main road, and on an unfrequented track. ’The murderer apparently drove the curj back and abandoned it. A mother's Presentiment. Mrs Leslie said that she. was at n loss to understand the motive of the i crime. “My husband,” she said,! “had no enemies at ail so far as j! know, and as he only definitely decid- | ed to make the journey almost at the | last moment, it is scarcely conceivable that any attack upon him could have been pre-arranged. “I accompanied my husband in his ear as far at The Spit Junction, where I left him and returned to 31 only. lie was then in. his usual spirits, and we talked freely about general affairs. It seemed an extraordinary thing that when he at last decided to make the journey his mother warned him not. to give a ride to any strangers he might overtake on the road. My husband had frequently made journeys to Forbes in his car since we came \o Sydney seven months ago, and it was his custom to give people whom he met on the roads a lift. His mother always considered that he exposed himself to some risk by doing this. “Even early on Tuesday morning,” continued Mrs Leslie. “ my husband was seriously thinking of postponing the journey, but later changed hrs mind. On the occasions that he did not go to Forbes and Condobolin ho always took the same route.” Mrs Leslie, senior, mother of the victim of the crime, is convinced that her son met his death through giving a ride to a stranger. “Before he set out on the journey,” she said, ‘‘l had a presentiment that something untoward was going to happen to him, and I believe that ho shared that presentiment because of the way he hesitated vbout leaving Sydney.” Three Brothers Arrested. Exactly 24 hours after the discovery of tho crime three brothers were arrested and charged with the murder of Mr Leslie. They arc Hubert William Higgs, aged 36, married, picture show proprietor, of North Bend; Wilburn Guy Higgs, aged 26, married, salesman, of Rose Bay; Bruce Doubleday Higgs, aged 21, clerk, of Rose Bay. They were brought before the Court last Friday and remanded for a week. Air Leslie belonged to one of tire ; best-known families in the west, where | for the last half-century they had been engaged in pastoral pursuits. He was 48 years of age, and of a quiet disposition.