POISONED FOOD.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16034, 27 January 1920, Page 3

POISONED FOOD.

A MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR,

SERIOUS ALLEGATIONS AGAINST

YOUNG MAN,

At the present time the Wellington detective force is investigating an affair that promises to provide a sensational sequel to a case that was mentioned in the Wellington Magistrate’s Court on Friday, Some time ago Mr William Murphy, the professional rat-catcher, who lives with his son in Wellington South, made the acquaintance of a youth who was in need of a home. Mr Murphy provided the youth with lodgings, and nothing untoward occurred until Thursday last. In the evening of the day mentioned, Mr Murphy returned home as usual with his son, and on entering the house they noticed the youth decamping with a parcel under his arm. Subsequently the youth was arrested on a charge of theft. Meanwhile Mr Murphy made an inspection of the house, as a result of which he discovered that a box containing poisons used for exterminating rats had been broken open and a quantity of poison removed. Pur suing their investigations, Mr Murphy and his son then made the startling discovery that the food which they were about to prepare for their evening meal had been saturated with deadly poison, strychnine having been liberally used. Scarely anything edible had been left untouched, and for the timely discovery there would assuredly have been a terrible tragedy. As an outcome of the arrest, Walter James Smith, aged 19, appeared before Mr E. Page, S.M., in the Wellington Magistrate’s Court on Friday to answer to a charge of stealing two tins of cigarettes, a revolver, book of seaman’s discharges, and a naval medal and ribbon, the property of William Murphy, to a total value of <£4.

In applying for a remand, Sub-Inspec-tor Emerson said titer© was a probability of a more serious charge being preferred against the defendant. Tlie defendant asked for bail, and Sub-Inspector Emerson said Smith was a young man who had been about Wellington for some time, was not known to have followed any employment, and had no friends in the Dominion. The charge that might be preferred against him was a very serions one indeed. Bail was not granted. Smith’s home is in Australia, and it it understood that he followed a seafaring life.