FIENDISH CRIME

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19759, 14 December 1935, Page 16 (Supplement)

FIENDISH CRIME

(From a correspondent.)

MELBOURNE, Dec. 4,

Attacked while on her way home at Lcongatha a little girl was gagged and bound, brutally handled, and her body thrown into the ti-tree scrub. The victim of the fiendish crime was .June Rushmer, aged 6, only daughter of Cyril Rushmer and his wife, well-known Leongatha residents. The child was playing in a park near, her home recently and she told her playmates that she was going home. She was not seen again. When she failed to return home, the parents organised a search, assisted by neighbours and friends and combed the district all night without success. This morning the searchers found the little girl in the scrub. A rough gag had been tied around her mouth and her hands were tightly bound behind her back. Her clothing was torn and her /face and body badly bruised. A large squad of police was rushed from the city. The crime bears a close resemblance

Little Girl Victim . . . Body Found In Scrub.

to the murder of the 12-year-old Ethel Belshaw who was murdered at 'lnverloch on New Year’s Day. The police have been informed that shoi’tly before dai-k last night a man was seen riding a bicycle with a little girl on the handle bars. The informer was unable to say whether the girl he saw was the murdered girl. The police blacktrackers and Alsatians found the tracks of a man near the scene of the crime, but the tracks were lost.

An examination of the body by a Government pathologist revealed that death was due to suffocation caused by a sock tied round the child’s throat.

Examination of the body by Dr. Mollison, Government Pathologist, proved death to be due to suffocation and shock, and that the girl had been outraged. A boy has informed the police that he saw a man carrying the girl into the scrub last night, but as the girl offered no resistance the incident did not raise any suspicions.