MISSING MAN ALLEGED SEEN AT FEILDING

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 99, 17 February 1950, Page 5

MISSING MAN ALLEGED SEEN AT FEILDING

Police Probing Double Mystery The double mystery ,of the shooting of Mr F. S. Hodson and the disappearance of Chesley Lachlan Brooks from Edgecumbe on Monday continues to engage the attention of a large force of police with temporary headquarters at the Te Teko hotel under command of Mr 15 J. Crowley, Inspector of Police from Gisborne, who has with him Detective Inspector J. Walsh, Senior Detective J. Finlay, Detective-Ser-geants R. Waterson and J. B. McLean, Senior Sergeant F. M. Fuller, Constable F. O. Jensen, a fingerprint expert, as well as a large number of police officers who have been engaged in combing the district for any traces of the missing man or of Mr Hodson’s car, which is also still missing.

So far it seems pretty definite Ithat neither the car nor the missing man can be still in this district, but it is satisfactorily established, police say, that a man answering to Brooks’s description was seen in Feilding on Wednesday } afternoon, and investigations are proceeding in that locality.

An inquest concerning the death of Mr Hodson was opened by the District Coroner, Mr C. S. Armstrong, on Wednesday .night, and adjourned following formal evidence of identification, given by Mr J. B. Speirs, Edgecumbe. The funeral takes place at Whakatane this morning. No Motive: Few Clues So far nothing the police have released for publication suggests that there was any reason why anyone should have wanted to do Mr Hodson an injury, and there seems as yet nothing 'definite to prove with .what type of weapon the wound that killed him was inflicted. No weapon has been found. Believing that he might be able to give valuable information the police are concentrating on the search for Brooks, who is alleged to have been in the locality of the shooting on Monday morning and to have been seen with the missing car. A bicycle was discovered under pine trees near where Mr Hodson’s body had been hidden. Another Minor Mystery Another minor mystery is the disappearance of a motor cycle of which Brooks was the registered owner, and which he was known to have had as late as last Fridaynight. If he sold it, the police would like to hear from the new owner. In any case they are anxious to trace the machine. It is a black Ariel, an old model, registered number 5222.