MYSTERY DEATH

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 12, 15 January 1932, Page 10

MYSTERY DEATH

MELBOURNE POLICE BAFFLED. SYDNEY, December 24. Mystery surrounds the death of Gwendoline Pitman, a single woman, who was found terribly burned aud barely conscious near her homo at Maysville (Victoria) one day last week. The circumstances of the case constitute one of the most baffling mysteries in the history of Australian crime. Of a well-connected and well-known family, Miss Pitman, who was 40 years of age, entered into partnership some time ago with a man of artistic tastes. They built a quaint house which they called “The Log Cabin,” and fitted it up as a curiosity shop, combining photography and hairdressing with the sale of curios and works of art. They established a modest trade with tourists. Miss Pitman lived alone in this cabin on the outskirts of the little town of Maysville, and her partner made his home elsewhere. On three occasions during the past twelve months she made attemps to take her own life, and her sister Olive vanished into the bush in 1926 and was not heard of again. Miss Pitman was last seen alive by her partner the night before she was discovered terribly burned. She was evidently expecting a visitor for tea or supper, for her table was set for two. Who the person .as she expected, or whether anybody did visit her, has not been ascertained. She was found early the next day lying in a small clearing on the banks of a stream near her cabin, so shockingly burned as to be ah most unrecognisable. Her body was blackened by fire from the waist up. Strangely, there was a burn on one leg under an undamaged silk stocking, and her hands were not so badly burned as the rest of her body. The police ask: Would she not have made some attempts to beat out the flames with her hands if she had been able to use them? The left side of her head was charred as though she had lain in a fire. All her hair was gone, and the scalp was burned through. It appears that her injuries could not have been caused solely by the mere flaming of her petrol-soaked clothes. Still alive when found, Miss Pitman murmured to the police, “Petrol—the only way out.” Then she lapsed into unconsciousness. Just before she died she is said to have made a statement, the nature of which the police refuse to reveal before they have made further inquiries. A resident of the town has informed the police that he heard a motor car leave the town at midnight, but the police have not yet established whether Miss Pitman had a visitor. If she soaked her clothes in petrol the police are at a loss to understand wfiv she left her house, and how she climbed the high fence that surrounds her home. A little safe in which she kept her valuables was found to be intact. Generally the suicide theory is exploded by the fact that the woman was found some distance from the spot where, it was obvious, she received her injuries. Her partner can throw no light on the tragedy, and it was only after he had made a search that her body was discovered.