BRUTAL CRIME.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 226, 24 September 1928, Page 7

BRUTAL CRIME.

Elderly Couple Done To Death Then Buried. POLICE ON CLUE. (Australian Press Assn. —United Service.) LONDON, September 23. The bodies of an elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Kirby, of Old Thornaby Green, buried in a shallow hole, were found by Mrs. Stead, of Norton, near Stockton-on-Tees, while she was seeking some soil for her plants. The police are now searching for a suspect and a motor car. Mrs. Stead says she noticed a mound in a lonely lane. A wrist and a coat sleeve were protruding. She informed her son-in-law. The police exhumed the bodies. Mr. Kirby had been wounded in the head and the wound was still bleeding. His wife apparently had been strangled. Her boot was found in an adjacent ditch. The police prevented hundreds of inquisitive people from flocking to the scene. The woman victim formerly was a widow. She married Mr. Kirby in 1925. The latter was a market trader and his wife was a tripe-dresser. They were keenly interested in public affairs. An entry to Mr. Kirby’s locked house was forced by the police. They ascertained that the couple had been murdered there and then conveyed a distance of three miles to the burial place, apparently in a car which was garaged on the premises.

ARREST MADE.

GRANDSON OF WOMAN HELD. (United Service.) (Received 12 noon.) LONDON, September 23. In connection with the murder of Mr. and Mrs. Kirby, who were found buried in a shallow hole, by a Mrs. Stead, who was seeking some soil for her plants, near the police have arrested, on implication with the murder, Charles William Conklin. The suspect is aged 22 and is an ex-soldier. He is the grandson of the murdered woman by her first marriage.

DUAL LIFE.

WOMAN’S TREACHERY. LOS ANGELES, September 21. “When a married woman seeks to hold the advantages of marriage and, at the same time, has illicit relationship with a lover, she is a selfish imposter. Mrs. Melius dwelt in her home as a traitor.”

In this picturesque language a woman attorney assailed the dead victim of the sadist-like murder, for which Leo Kelley (28), a butcher’s delivery man, is on trial for his life. Miss Orfa Stont, who is instructed by the accused man’s lawyer, blamed the society woman for Kelley’s moral irregularities. “Myrtle Melius beset this boy, twelve years her junior,” she said, “and the responsibility for almost everything that occurred belongs to her.” The woman attorney also declared that Kelley was not a home-wrecker. “No man can break into a home where the doors are not opened to him,” she asserted.

Counsel on both sides admitted that Kelley and Mrs. Melius had had illicit relations for five years, and the defence suggested that there was as much suspicion against the woman’s wealthy husband as against Kelley. Mrs. Melius’ naked and mutilated body was found in her bedroom some weeks ago by her husband, Frank Melius, a manufacturer, on his return from a . tri P- Kelley was discovered hiding in the house. The woman’s body bore numerous wounds, which were said to have been inflicted by Kellev’s teeth. J

CANADA’S OLYMPIC STARS.

“BOUGHT” BY UNCLE SAM. TORONTO, September 21. When you can’t beat them, buy them out! All the Canadians who won events at the Olympic Games have been offered excellent positions in the United States. Many have already succumbed to the temptation of high salaries. The Marquette University, Michigan, announces that four Canadian Olympic men have joined Ito tanek teaa