THE HARTLEY MURDER.

Evening Star, Issue 3149, 24 March 1873, Page 2

THE HARTLEY MURDER.

A telegram which we published recently stated that Mrs M‘Aveney had confessed to the murder of her husband at Hartley. Subjoined is the account which the Sydney Morning Herald published. Up to that time the story told by Mrs M'Aveney was that her husband had been murdered by bushrangers A diabolical murder has been committed at a place called Pulpit hill Swamp, about fourteen miles in a south-easterly direction from Little Hartley, and one mile distant from a place called Megalong, at one time the residence of Hr Palmer. At the spot to which we refer lived an old man named Patrick M ‘ Aveney, about 74 years of age, and his wife Annie, who is also an aged person. They occupied a house on the farmstead, and seldom kept any servants, and had none living with them at the time of the murder. They cultivated but little more ground than was required to produce grain sufficient for their own support, and their chief means of support was dairying, and the fattening of pigs for sale. Toey had a good many cattle, and occasionally the old man sold some of them, the last lot being sold about six weeks ago, and realising some L 76. At the time of the murder the old couple were supposed to have a considerably larger sum that this on hand. Pulpit-hill Swamp, where they lived, was very much isolated, the nearest human beings living about two miles off. While the old folks were living wholly unsuspecting evil, they were visited, on Friday last, by two bloodthirsty villains, who had become acquained with their unprotected situation. They were masked in black crape, murdered the old man, and carried away what money they cjuld lay their hands on.