PARK MURDER.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 237, 6 October 1928, Page 3 (Supplement)

PARK MURDER.

DESPERATE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. MASKS ON BOTTLE. The lonelier portions of Centennial Park, Sydney, have been the scenes o£ some grim dramasthat have beconie'part of the stories of undiscovered crimes. It was in an outrof-the-way spot near the marshes that Clarence Carrington M'Lennan was done to death' on October "3. 1922. For this crime no one ever paid the,penalty. _ M'liennan's body was discovered about 5 o'clock in the afternoon in a" portion of the park well screened from observation. It was sometimes frequented by two-up and poker "schools."' Stripped of everything save underclothing and socks, the corpse lay on some low scrub, hidden by a bank of tea-tree scrub on the Karidwick side and by marshes running up to a mound in the direction of Oxford Street. Wrapped round the face was a bloodstained shirt, one arm of which had been torn off.

Bruises on the head indicated that the victim had been brutally battered,: apparently by a bottle, which was found nearby. He had died from lacerations of the brain, caused by a blow behind the ear. .

1 ■'". .Fierce Fight. ■ . The had 'evidently been . committed in the open space on the edge of one.of the swamps. There were signs of a fierce struggle, where the grass had been torn up, and there was a large patch of blood. A-young tea-tree, which, had been torn up by the roots, iwith* branches flayed, also seemed to have been used as a weapon in the struggle. The indications were that at least three people had been present.- ■• ■ • '■■■-.

M'Lennan's body had been carried from the open and thrown face downwards on to a patch of scrub, in the midst of the tea-tree. A number.'of tracks threaded the thicket, and it would'have been easy for • the murderers to- have made their escape through any one of them ,and out through'the Randwick; gates, where, they could catch trams to the city, Coogee, or Clovelly. • ■ ■•'

M'Lennan Lad been an inmate of the Woodville Red Cross' Home,' in Belifiore Road, Randwick. He. went out for a walk earlyin the afternoon., of the. day he was killed. ' '■ .

Following police investigations, Silvester Patrick O'Beilly, 25, was arrested and charged with having murdered Jl'Lennan.

At the inquest evidence' was given by the police finger-print expert, Sergeant Perkins,- that a finger mark found on the "bottle discovered at the scene of the murder, corresponded with O'Reilly's. Other finger marks on the bottle did not correspond either with. , O'Keilly'a ; or M'L'ennan'g. •. ■ .' •

. Jl'Lennan's clothes and boots, were found, to have been pawned, but the pawnbroker declared' that it; was not O'Reilly'who had pawned them. • >

At the inquest- a statement, said to have been made by.O'Reillv, set'out'that he had been in the cdmpar. of the deceased on the day of the tragedy with two other men. They, met in a hotel in Campbell Street, and afterwards were drinking from bottles in Campbell Street. According to his statement M'Lennan and his companion, a man named M'Keever, then parted from the others and went back to the hotel. ■ .

M'Keever, in, his evidence, declared that he had last; seen M'Lennan ; in the company of O'Reilly and a fair man. They were drinking in the hotel and disappeared! ..'"■' A motor car driver, interviewed by the police, failed to. identify O'Reilly as. one of two men he had seen in M'Lennan's company in the park on the day of the tragedy. . ■ , . . ' ' , O'Reilly was committed for trial _ on November 13. ilt was not until June 19 the following year, after two postponements, that his case was finally disposed of. • - ' i • It was stated by the Crowri Prosecutor, Mr. Cbyle, that the police had been unable to obtain certain evidence, and K-ive, was given to enter a-nolle prosegui on tne indictment. > .; • • •