SHOCKING TRAGEDY IN VTCTORIA.

Evening Star, Issue 3407, 22 January 1874, Page 3

SHOCKING TRAGEDY IN VTCTORIA.

The • Bendigo Independent ’ states that a most shocking tragedy has just been brought to light at Corop. On the 2nd instant, a couple of haystacks and a skillion on Mr Kiley’s farm, at Corop, were set on fire. The stacks were a considerable distance from one another, so that it was patent to everyone that they had been wilfully set on fire. At first it was thought that the act had been perpetrated by some one out of malice to Mr Riley, but from subsequent discoveries it is more than probable, in fact almost a certainty, that they had been fired with the intention to cloak one of the most revolting murders that the history of the Co'ony has yet been gained with. In the skillion that was burnt, several working men for Mr Riley resided, and amongst them was a man named Kent and another Crossland the sou of Dr, Crossland, of-Inglewood! bmee the night of the fire Grassland has been missing. Some days after the fire the horrible discovery was made that a man had been burnt in one of the haystacks. This discovery was made in consequence of the wind blowing the burnt bay off the heap and revealing the burnt skeleton pf a man The remains were dreadfully charred, and could not possibly be identified; but surrounding circumstances lead to the strong belief that the remains were those of young Grassland. A knife, pipe, &c., found with the bones have been identified as his. He and Kent had had a quarrel on the night of the fire, and he had given Kent a severe thrashing, for which Kent . was heard to threaten his life. An axe is missing from the farm, and as an axehead was found in the stack, it is supposed that Grassland was murdered with it and his body thrown into the stack after the latter had been set on fire. Kent has been arrested and has Since admitted that he set fire to one of the stacks—not the one in which, the skeleton was found—and pleads that he was drunk at the time.