THE PERTH SENSATION

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16816, 7 June 1926, Page 5

THE PERTH SENSATION

MURDER OF DETECTIVES. TWO MEN ARRESTED. (Received June 7, 10.15 a.m.) PERTH, June 7. In connection with the deaths of Detectives Walsh and Pitman, the police arrested Evan Clarke, aged 32, a hotel licensee of South Boulder, and Phillip Johns Treffen, aged 51, a barman, and charged them with tho wilful murder of Walsh. Tho two men are well known in the district. Their arrest caused a sensation.

A cable message on May 13 stated that tiie discovery of (lie bodies of Detective-Inspector Walsh and Detective Pilman, of Hie Perth Police Force, in an abandoned mine shaft revealed a murder unparalleled in the history of West. Australian goldfields. Acting on information supplied by two men who were driving through the hush, the police search parly arrived at a disused mine, shaft near llie Coolgardio Road. At the bottom of Hie shaft, which was 60ft. deep, the mutilated bodies of Ihe missing detectives were found. The bodies bad been dismembered and the beads were missing. The bodies were charred. Evidently the murderers had placed the various parts of tlie body in a furnace in an endeavour to destroy evidence of the crime. At Hie bottom of the shaft, covering Ihe bodies were found firo bricks, gold scales, fire bars and a tonga furnace used for smelting ore, and several other parts of an illicit gold treatment plant. It is known that the detectives were watching a “plant” somewhere south of Kalgoorlie.