GIRL’S DEATH

Waikato Times, Volume 117, Issue 19599, 11 June 1935, Page 7

GIRL’S DEATH

WEST COAST CASE.

POISONED CHOCOLATES

POLICE INVESTIGATION,

Since the death occurred on September 24 of last year of Miss Margaret May Smith, 22-year-old daughter of Mr and Mrs it. Smith, of Blackball, allegedly through eating poisoned chocolates sent anonymously through the post to two other girls, the police have been unremitting in their investigations to -trace the sender of the chocolates. Little has been heard of the steps that have been taken by the police, but detectives have been working away quietly during the past seven months or -so and it is stated In a West Coast report that an arrest In connection with tho affair is likely shortly (says the Wellington Post). The case is regarded as one of the most ’tragic and remarkable in the history of crime on the West ’Coast for the reason that Miss -Smith was tho innocent victim of a plot, which, it is believed, was aimed at -the lives of other well-known Blackball girls, Miss Jean ’Clark and Miss Ethel Bragg. The agonising but sudden death of Margaret (Smith, pointed to one thing —poison—and early investigations disclosed that chocolates sent anonymously through the post to Misses ■Clark and Bragg, and of which Miss Smith had partaken a bare hour before her death, In the bakery of Dumpleton’s, where she was employed, were “doctored” with sufficient strychnine crystals to kill not one person, but half a dozen. It was a mere twist of fate which prevented the deaths of perhaps the whole household where the deadly one pound box of chocolates was received. Thorough Police Probe. Detective-Sergeant T. E. Holmes and Detective Thompson, of Christchurch, were immediately assigned to the case and the police probe, one oi the most thorough and difficult in -the history of New Zealand, has gone on unremittingly ever since. Upon Detective Thompson’s (transfer to Invercargill, Detective-Sergeant U. Knight, off Greymouth, took up tho case with Detective-Sergeant Holmes, and these two efficient investigators have not let up for a moment in their efforts to bring to justice the mysterious “Jim,” who signed the note which was enclosed in the box of chocolates. Their work lias been done quietly and unobtrusively, but so effectively that the Grey River Argus believes that a sensational denouement is about to take place.

In the intervening months, a great amount of work has been done on tho case. The statements which have been taken from suspects, interested parties, and anyone likely to be able to throw some light on the crime would All several books, and all of this prospective evidence . has been sifted again and again, in the hope that there might be some remark or gesture which would “break" the case.

Importance of Wrapper.

Murder by poisoning, especially in ■cases where there is an entire lack of a possible motive, is the most difficult crime to solve. In this case (states the Argus) the police secured the note which was enclosed with the chocolates, the box of chocolates, and most Important, the wrapper around the box. Their first disappointment came when the post mark was Indecipherable, but by the aid of science it was fairly conclusively proven that the deadly box was posted in the chief post office in Greymouth, pointing to the fact that the crime was conceived and executed locally. The real “break” In the case, however, came through the wrapper on the parcel. 'lt was a peculiar typo of brown paper, and many days of heartbreaking work by the detectives resulted in its source, in a Greymouth business house, being 'traced. - From here it was traced to various persons, and there is good reason to believe that this paper clue, combined with the writing on it, was the one that definitely put the detectives on a trail which ever since they have been tenaciously following. Naturally it has led up many blind alleys, out of which they have had to find their way, but unless something unforeseen happens now, at the crucial stage, it is believed that shortly an arrest will be made.

■ln the early stages of the case rumours were life, some of them malicious, and many of them coupled tho names of women with' the crime, but it is confidently believed that the sender of Die chocolates Was a man, residing on tho West Coast at the time.