TEACHER SHOT.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 227, 25 September 1928, Page 10

TEACHER SHOT.

MYSTE.RIOUS CRIME.

IN LITTLE N.S.W. TOWN.

POLICE CANNOT MAKE PROGRESS.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, September 20

Mystery still surrounds the shooting of John Mulholland, a school teacher at Wolumla, near Bega, on the far south coast of New South Wales, last Friday night. He was shot as he struck a match to light his pipe after he had left a friend's place opposite his own house near the school. Detectives have gone to the town from Sydney, but have made no arrest yet. The crime bears all the elements of mystery and the person who fired the shot has not left a single trace of his presence. Mulholland was a well-respected member of the community and had been teaching at the school there for a number of years. He'was very popular and one time when the Department of Education proposed moving him to another town residents signed a petition asking the Department to let him stay there. They did so and Mulholland has established his position in the town, in the public life of which he was a prominent figure. On Friday night last he was visiting some friends who live opposite, and had just left their grounds and stopped for a few minutes to light his pipe. The lighted match must have made a target for the person who fired the shot for Mulholland was found a few minutes later, dead, shot through the mouth. The affair caused a stir through the town.. Mulholland leaves a wife, and three children. He was on particularly affectionate terms with his wife, and neighbours stated that they were a very agreeable pair. Wolumla is only a small hamlet, with a population of about 70 or 100, and any clandestine love affairs or liaisons would be known to nearly everybody in the town. Detectives from Sydney, however, have failed to unearth, so far, any suspicion of any such affairs. They have questioned many of the young women of the town, but though Mulholland was friends of a great many, he had always treated them with respect and had never made any advances towards them, they said. Nevertheless, police declare that the detectives are working on a line of inquiry which is promised to provide a sensation when it is finally unearthed. No trace of the weapon which fired the shot has been found, nor have police as yet announced the motive for the shooting of Mulholland. They hint, however, that hate and jealously from a man was the moving spirit which actuated the person who, fired a shot. It is considered possible that the murderer may have mistaken Mulholland for another person and that in the meagre light of the match, thought he was firing at someone else. The township is seething with excitement and theories are being advanced by all sorts of amateur crime investigators. The Sydney detective has had great difficulty in sifting the stories of people who have come forward to give evidence as most of their stories are merely hearsay and rumour. Newspapers are beginning to take an interest in the crime and several have sent special representatives to the spot. The crime has assumed big proportions which are increased as the days go on and no Solution is reached.