MURDER MYSTERY

Hokitika Guardian, 14 October 1927, Page 2

MURDER MYSTERY

(Australian ifc N.Z. Cable Association.) SYDNEY. Oct. 13. A mysterious tragedy is reported. ATr Ronald Lachlan Leslie, a grazier, and a man of means, left his homo in Alanly, Sydney, by motor car, travelling alone, to visit one of his country properties at eight o’clock in tho morning. The same evening his car was found standing on the road off the Alain AVcstor.n Road, near Blaxlaml. Leslie was found inside, dead, with three bullet wounds in his chest. He had apparently been dead for some time. It. was at first thought to he a case of suicide, but as no weapon was in evidence, the police now regard the ease a.s one of murder. There is no clue. There were money and valuables on the body, but they were intact.

AVHAT A WOMAN SAW. SYDNEY, Oct. 13

Police inquiries in connection with tbe death of Leslie have resulted in their locating a woman at ALilley Heights. She states she was standing near tbe railway station at A r alley Heights and noticed a motor car containing two men. As the car approached, she heard a number of reports, which she took to be the tear backfiring. Then, one man threw up bis arms, lurched forward, and collapsed in the seat. She did not attach any signficance to the happening, thinking that the man was intoxicated. As the man collapsed, his hat fell out of the car to the road. She picked it up, and later, on reading of the tragedy, she handed it to the police. Tbe hat has since been found to belong to Leslie. The spot where-the woman was standing is about Tour miles from where tbe body was found. A black tracker, on investigating, discovered a blood-stained overcoat hidden in a hollow log, but it did not belong to Leslie. The police consider that three men were concerned in the tragedy, and that Leslie picked up one of them in his car, and the other two followed in another car, and that when the man in Leslie’s car shot him, the other car approached and brought Leslie’s car back along the main road until the turn off where it was found had been reached.

An examination of Leslie’s body showed tlu'ee bullet wounds, all the shots having been fired from behind. A SERIOUS CHARGE. (Received this day at 8 a.m.) SYDNEY, Oct. 13. The police arrested three brothers named Higgs at Rose Bay to-night and charged them in connection with the death of Leslie.