AN ATROCIOUS MURDER.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1127, 7 December 1883, Page 3

AN ATROCIOUS MURDER.

A most diabolical murder and supposed outrage has been committed at the township of Fanmnre, sixteen miles from Warrnambool. The victim is a girl of ten years of age, named Margaret Nolan, the daughter of ar'-w'eli-to-do farmer, living a out a mile half-out bf ,lhe'.vjltagd. J . The girl was seilt into the township.with butter, at three o’clock od November IS, to the store -Of , I 'fir. Anderson, and .then went further on to what is termed the old township over the river. From this place she was seen returning, and as she was passing up the road going in the direction of her home at about 4 o’clock, she was was walking beside a man on horseback. Tins man has been identified as James Morgan, a farmer at Lake Warrnambool. At eight o’clock in - evening,-finding that the girl had not returned, her parents becoming uneasy, .tßjvtlfr dnnniriejf: the township.;. It was. jthtiji, £ :<Ji--sP''V£s,ed-.ilihat she ha I", left- ,- bpr Some, but could not be traced‘beyond a . ofxtctisTfe alarm being given, the" ,vgliol,e,b(Vtvns|»ip Jittehed out in search, which was kept up all night. At 4 o’clock next morning the party, .headed by the father nf- the-child, discovered her dead body lying amongst some tall ferns about' halt a-mile from, the v tfiwn»hip, and not many yards from the metalled road The body was dying on its back with the arms extended, "tbe clothes disarranged, and a fearful wound ,in the neck. In her left hand the child gasped some, ferns, and all around her were evidences of. a desperate struggle. Suspicion has fallen upon Morgan, who has been arrested, and is now in Warrnambool gaol. The prisoner is an elderly man with a family of fourteen grown up children. On the cuß of his shit was found a solitary spot of blood. He was not intoxicated when he left the township. When at an hotel there he was seen to make use of a knife in cutting tobacco. This knife has not been found on his person, and he says that he unable to account for it. There is great excitement in the township, and an active search is being made for the knife amongst the dense ferns, which are being cut down.— Argus.