AN AUSTRALIA TRAGEDY.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 11496, 31 January 1903, Page 7

AN AUSTRALIA TRAGEDY.

AN OLD MA2J BATTERED TO DEATH

United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. (Received January 30th, 9.21 a.m.) ADELAIDE, January 30. In connection with the Stirling tragedy, the jury returned a verdict that Cullen was murdered by some person unknown.

Exactly twelve months ego, says an Adelaide paper of January 4th, the police were investigating one of tie most seneational criminal cases South Australia had known, and the new year finds them Engaged in even a more puzzling and mysterious murder than the Towitta case proved. Stirling West, one of the quietest and inofit picturesque hamlets in the hills, is the scene of the latest tragedy. Probably as far back as Christmas Day George Cullen, a roan of unusually big proportions, aged eighty-two years, was battered to death in his own nous* at Quarry Hill, where he was living the Jife of a recluse, but so secluded had been the old man in hie habile that the tragedy was not discovered until Friday afternoon, and nothing was known in Adelaide about it until Saturday morning. The last person to see Cullen alive appears to have been Mr Fairhall, lodgekeeper on the estate of the Mite Mr Magarey, who says that he observed the old man on December 24th. Deceased was in the habit of going down the main roa-d every morning to meet the butcher. He had previously remarked to Mr Fairhall that he was not going U» stop there by himself much longer. A SON'S STORY.

IRobert Cullen, h]a ■ eon, last caw has father alive on the Sunday before Christmas. He said on Saturday, "I was on speaking terms with father, but did not visit him

frequently because of his quarrelsome na-

ture. On Christmas morning a chap told me that my father's house was shut up, and that he had seen nobody about. I did