SPIRITED AWAY?

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 239, 9 October 1928, Page 7

SPIRITED AWAY?

Chief Witness In Chicken Farm Horror. DRAMATIC MIDNIGHT PLIGHT. (Australian Press Assn.—United Service.) (Received 9.30 a.m.) VANCOUVER, October 8. Jessie Clark, aged nineteen, a Canadian girl, whose startling disclosures brought about the arrest of her uncle, Gordon Stuart Northcott, on sensational murder charges, made a dramatic flight at midnight ; on Sunday across the border. The girl bundled into a highpowered car and disappeared before the police officers were aware she had gone. It is reported that the agents of Northcott in California, engineered th? coup to prevent the girl giving testimony. Northcott and his mother await extradition, being charged with the murder of four boys at the chicken ranch in California. A later report indicates that the flight was engineered by the California police to prevent any recantation of the girl's statement at the extradition proceedings.

On September 17 a message was received from California stating that four boys had been murdered at a farm near Riverside. Rumours were current regarding the murders, and due to statements made by Jessie Clark, who applied to the immigration officials to deport her brother, Sanford Clark, aged 15, Gordon Stuart Northcott, and his mother were arrested. A later message stated that a formula for a mixture of chickenfood was found at the Riverside Farm. The investigating officers disclosed the gruesome fact that the mixture contained portions of human remains.