LABOURER WHO RAN AMOK

Chronicle (Levin), 17 October 1946, Page 5

LABOURER WHO RAN AMOK

Received Wednesday, 9.30 p.m. SYDNEY, Oct. 16. "I done that job. Something went wrong with my head and I done it, ' ' is vvhat Mervyn Garvie, aged 39, labourer, is alleged to have told Deteetive Sergeant J. V. Ramus, toueliing the death of Cecil John Kelly and the assault on Miss Miss Crompton near Bulli 011 August 2S. "At an inquest today Deteetive Sergeant Ramus said Garvie confessed that he picked up an iron bolt when walking along Ihe beacli. He saw a small car and a man got out of it. He struek the inau twice' and thought he struek the girl. He admitted the girl's allegations of what occurred later. He tlirew the bolt into the sea oft' the pier. Garvie could not write but could read a little. The statement Avas taken by detectives. Mervyn Garvie was committed for trial by the coroner, 011 a eharge of murdering Ivelly. Bail was refused. In one of the most savage crimes in Australian annals, a man was murdered and incinerated in a car and his iiancee struclc down and raped by a sex maniac. The criine occurred on the low undulating lieadland of Sandon's Point near Bulli on the south coast of New South Wales. Eirst intimation of the tragedv was received at 4.30 a.m. when a surveyor's assistant living in the only house on the point, saw a car blazing about 100 yards away. He and a mine manager raced to the spot with a fire extinguisher and found the body of a man huddled in the back seat and burned beyond reeognition. ' They * then hea'rd moans coming from a nearby ditoh. The moans eame from a semiconseious girl, who was bleeding from wounds in Ihe head. She was taken to Bulli district hospital suffering from a probable fracture of the skull, severe shock, bruises, and abrasions 1o the body, arms and head.