GAROTTE MURDERS IN SYDNEY

Dunstan Times, Issue 545, 27 September 1872, Page 3

GAROTTE MURDERS IN SYDNEY

The garcters of the city seem, like Nicholls and Lester, to work in couples, Saturday nights, or rather Sunday mornings being chestn for the period of their murderous exploits ; while the victims have been elderly and infirm nun, and the booty, at the most, < nly a few shillings. The first of these dreadful casts occurred on Katuiday night, the 30th of June, wht n John Cafferty, a iraper’s a-sisan', aged sixty-six \eais, was garotted in York-street, kicked, ki clt upon, and left fatally injured and insensible finding himself, when he became conscious, robbed of 12s. Cd. in si ver and a few trifling articles be ha I in his pocket, Under almost precisely similar circumstances, on the following Saturday’ night, at exactly the same hour, but in a different part of the ciy, namely, Cargo’s lane, in i astlereagh-street, a man named Charles Simpson, sixty-two years of age, was attacked in precisely the same manner as Cafferty had been, fatallv injured in much the same way, and robbed of half a sovereign and two shillings. Both of these unfortunate ineft died from the injuries received, after lingering for about the same period of time. In each case the poor fellows bad just before received tbeir wages for the week, and each bad a gla°s or two on the road, but were not intoxicated ; and the evidence taken at the separate inquests clearly points to 'ho fact that both murders were committed by the same men. John Cafferty was admit'ed into the infirmary tlrreo days af er the occurrence, and, under medical treatment, survive 1 until the 18th ofvjuly. Poor Simpson could not get a bed at the infirmary, and therefore became an out door patient, and lingered till the 24th, when he died, exactly a week after the first victim. All the circumstances connected with the two cases 'are so precisely similar, except that the spots where the murders were committed are not near each other, that the evidence in the latter case reads just like a repitition of t at given in the former. Verdicts of wilful murder against some persons unknown have been

e returned fn each case, and the Government s has offered 100/. reward for the apprcheni sion and conviction of the murderers ot each i victim. That these crime? should have 6 been perpetrated in the midst of the most populous part of the city marly a month I i since, and that up to the present moment, a go far as is known, cot the slightest traces f of the murderers have been discovered, is '• anything but creditable to the zeal and 1 j intelligence of tho pplb*—jS/tfwcy. Empire