A MURDER CLEARED UP AFTER TWELVE YEARS.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2143, 19 March 1870, Page 2

A MURDER CLEARED UP AFTER TWELVE YEARS.

Headers of the mail news will remember that amongst the telegraphic items published a clay or two ago was a statement that a man named George Dyer had given himself up to the London police as the perpetrator of a murder committed about December, 1857, just 12 years ago, on the Mia-Mia Creek, Newstead, near Castlemaine. Reference to the Victorian Police Gazette of January 28, 1858, shows that LIOO reward and free pardon to an accomplice were offered for such information as would lead to the apprehension and conviction of the person or persons who murS dered a man -whose remains were found in a waterhole on the Mia-Mia Creek, Newstead, near Castlemaine, at a spot distant about 25 yards from the main road leading to Carisbrook, in January, 1858. The body was found on the 9th of January, 1858, with six deep wounds ou the top of the skull as if done with a pick, and the left cheek was also smashed. From the position of the body it appeared that after the man was murdered the body had been put in a sack, which was then filled -with stones, the sack tied round the neck of the body, and the whole parcel then thrown into the waterhole. The body appeared to have been about four or five months in the hole, but subsequent inquiries led to the belief that the crime had been more recently committed. The following telegram was received by the mail just arrived, at the Melbourne detective office, in relation to the matter, from Superintendent Thompson, Bow street, London, dated 19th January last : —“ George Dyer, aged 47, is in custody, on his confession that about Christmas, 1357, he killed George Wilson, an Euglisli sailor, iu his tent, on the Loddon, aud threw the body into a well oloso by. Dyer arrived in Melbourne from England iu August, 1853, lived in Smith street, Collingwood ; then in North Melbourne, Loddon, Auckland, and bmk to Melbourne. Thence to Liverpool by Great Britain. Remanded for your inquiry. Telegraph result.’' Detectives Mainwaring and Hudson, who were in the Loddon district at the time the murdered body was found, made great exertions to discover the murderer, but without effect; and from their knowledge of the facts as elicited, they believe that Dyer is really the culprit, and not the victim of a self-accusing morbid mania. Detective Mainwaring infouns us that with reference to the crime having been committed iu December, 1867, it was shown at the inquest that a few weeks previous to the finding of the body, on a Saturday night, cries of “Oh, oh, you b murderer,” had been heard coming from the direction of the waterhole, but that brawls in which such expressions were constantly occurring being very frequent at that unsettled time, no notice was taken of the matter until the persistent howling of a strange dog at the waterhole attracted attention, aud led to the discovery of the body. There were then very few in« habitants at NcM'stead, which was on the Loddon River, about 13 miles from Castlemaino, aud the waterhole was about a quarter of a mile from the township. The dog, which was a large one, about two years old, of a brownish colour, was supposed to belong to the murdered man, and was taken all round the district, hut without being recognised. It was ultimately brought to Melbourne, where iu the course of years it got lost sight of, probably falling a victim to some dogshooting corporation officer. The murdered man, who looked like a labourer aud was a young man, was never identified, aud it is important that it should be ascertained who George Wilson was ; and, therefore, it is the duty of any one possessing or believing himself to possess information about him or Dyer, especially if of a nature to show what relation the two bore to each other, to come forward aud assist the detectives. Detective Mainwaring is now on the track of a person, named Dyer, who may turn out to be the man who has confessed the crime ; but nothing very decisive can be done until further details, with a description of the selfaccused murderer, are received by the next mail. At the time of the murder the country was in a very disturbed state, and numbers of criminals were at large, so that the work of tracing any individual’s wanderings must be very slow and tedious.