BODY IN A BAG.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIII, 5 February 1923, Page 5

BODY IN A BAG.

GIRL’S REMAINS FOUND IN RIVER. ti er Press association —Copyright.) MEijRUIiKNE, I 1 eb. 3. wniie magging me Yarra Kiver me ponce uiovuvered the decapitated body of a young girl in a bag. The head was found in a secom. .jag. The aecomposiuon of the uoay indicated that the girl had been dead some mouths. the police had been searching tor a coffin reported to have been thrown from a bridge by two men the previous night. MELBOLBNE, Feb. 4. A Melbourne doctor who made a post mortem on the body found in the Yarra, stated that it was too much decomposed to be able to give the cause of death, but the head had not been severed, but had apparently dropped off when the body was removed from its original resting place. \ Three women, Hannah Mitchell, Margaret Mitchell, and Margaret Mil ward have been arrested. The first-named is charged with murdering, in November, a girl named Bertha Coughlan, and the other two with being accessories after the fact. All were remanded. POLICE EVIDENCE. Police evidence showed that Coughlan came to Melbourne from Omeo •to receive medical treatment. She -went to the house of Nurse Mitchell. Next day the nurse secured a car and allegedly took a body, supposed to be that of Coughlan, and hid it in a gully, 45 miles from Melbourne. The police, acting on certain information received, discovered where the bodyhad been removed from the gully, but lost trace of it until Friday night, when they received a telephone call from a man stating that he had seen two men dumping a big package from the Anderton Street bridge into, tne Yarra. Dragging resulted in the discovery of the body. SHOOTINC AFFRAY. At the time of the arrest, Hannah Mitchell was out on bail in connection with a sensational shooting affair in December last. Coughlan was the daughter of a well-known resident of Omeo. Her relatives were not aware that anything untoward had happened to her. They supposed that the girl, after visiting Melbourne to receive attention to her eyes, had gone on a visit to- friends. The police’ say that the body, twice if not thrice, was removed to new burial places before being dumped into the river.—A. and N.Z. Cable.