Brother Says He Often Urged Her To Bank Or Invest Savings

Chronicle (Levin), 8 November 1949, Page 5

Brother Says He Often Urged Her To Bank Or Invest Savings

rSuecial to "Ohroniele"')

FOXTON, November 8. A statement that might indicate a theft motive in the brutal murder of Mrs. Emily Christina Hall, a widow, aged 6.9 years, at Foxton some time between Friday and Sunday was made, last night by Mr. John Alfred Nelson, a brother of the murdered woman. Mr. Nelson, who resides in Wellington, visited Foxton last night at the request of the police. He had visited his sister's house at the corner of Cook and Main Streets at' about rhidday ■ on Friday but found no one at home. He had then called at the , house of another sister, thinking Mrs. Hall might be there, but ,, again there was no one lat home and Mr. Nelson returned to Wellington. In an interview last night Mr. Nelson said Mrs. Hall had made a practice over many years of keeping quite substantial sums of money in her house. About three or four years ago she had shown him a bundle of money which she had told him contained between £1400 and £1500. Then, and on numerous. subsequent occasions, he had urged her to bank or invest the money, but she had declined to do so because she disliked lawyers. The last occasion on which he had spoken to her about the money was seven or eight weeks ago and, Mr. Nelson added, he was quite certain she had still had the money then in the house.

Iii addition to the house in which she lived and another property in Foxton, Mrs Hall also owned a house property in Burck Street, Wellington, and, according to Mr Nelson, it had been her intention to move from Foxton to the Buick Street house. Unfortunately, this house had been re-let without her prior knowledge, otherwise she might have been resident in Wellington at the j time of the murder. When she found it I impossible to obtain possession of her Buick Street house, she had proposed purchasing another house in Wellington, said Mr Nelson. This latter proposal she had mentioned to him only three or four weeks ago. I Referring to the large sums which ' he had said she kept in the house, Mr ■ Nelson told the interviewer that his sister had accumulated a considerable I amount from rents from her properties and from her pension over a period of years. One ofthe reasons why she had not wanted to bank the money, said Mr Nelson, was a fear that she might lose her pension. j According to Senior-Detective O. Power, who is in charge of the investigations at Foxton, the poliee have not yet been able satisfaetorily to establish when Mrs Hall was last seen alive. The statements of some local residents have been conflieting on this point. I There is reason to believe that the 1 murderer was probably well-known to Mrs Hall and that he freely gained ad missipn to the house. There is some evidence to suggest that Mrs Hall was sitting on a ehair in front of the kitclien stove, probably talking to the murderer while she briished the coat of her cat and spriukled ih with flea powder. A small brush thicklv coated with cat 's 1 hair and a tiri of insect powder from

which some of the contents had been spilled, were found close to where Mra, Hali's body was lying. It is known that Mrs Hall had a cat but there has been no trace of the animal since the murder investigations began.