GIRLS DEATH

Hokitika Guardian, 17 October 1928, Page 7

GIRLS DEATH

MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR

THE CASE OK ELSIE WALKER

AUCKLAND, Oct. 15

Despite searching inquiries the police have been unable to clear up tne mystery surrounding the death of Elsie Walker, aged 16, whose body was discovered in some scrub near the •stone quarry in the vicinity of Knox Home, Taniaki, on the evening of Friday, Oct. 5.

; When found the head of the girl was lying .in a small pool of blood, and iL is believed she had lain there since the previous Tuesday. Simultaneously with her disappearance from the home of her uncle and aunt, Mr and Mrs Frank Bayly, Papanioa, Bay of Plenty, was the discovery that Mr Bayly’s car had vanished. It was recovered at two o’clock on the Tuesday afernoon in a side street in Papatoetoe, seven miles away. The body of the girl was found by a labourer threedays later. WHO DROVE CAR?

How the girl came to be in the quarry is baffling the police. No one seems to have noticed her or the mot-or-car, which is believed to have conveyed her to the locality. It is generally surmised she walked to the spot and then collapsed from sheer exhaustion. If she drove Mr Bayly’s car from Papamoa it would have been an all-night journey and to walk from where the car was found to the quarry would Lave taken at least two hours. By ffiis time it would have been broad daylight. The body was found 200 yards off the road. A medical examination failed to reveal the cause of death, but the authorities are awaiting the report of an analyst. Inquiries made concerning the girl’s movements on Monday, October 1 have elicited the fact that she was last noticed at Mr Bayly’s home about 7.30 in the evening, when she was outside. Early on Tuesday morning the garage was found to be open and the car missing. Wheel marks on the road near the Bayly home, which are believed to have been made ! by the car and which the police have examined, pointed in the direction of Rotorua, would occupy a little over eight hours of an expert motorist’s time. Over six gallons of petrol were in the car on-October 1, and the car would do approximately 30 miles'to the gallon.

SPARE WHEEL CHANGED. That his daughter never drove a car in her life is stated by her father, Mr D. Renzy Walker. “She would have been 17 on October 20,” he said. “To my knowledge she had never driven a car and she had been in a service car only three times. She had been in Mrs ■'Bayly’s car, too, hut I am told she never at any time drove it. The only suggestion that she could drive came from the four oi five-years-old son of Mrs Bayly, who said he had seen Elsie take the car but of the garage one day when the family was away, wash it, and put it back again.

If‘She was last seen on Monday even-, ing, about half past seven. No one in the house heard the car being taken away, and Elsie was not found to he missing until next morning. The same afternoon the car was seen in Papatoetoe. My daughter had never been further north than Rotorua, which she visited some time this year with her aunt.”

When the car was in the garage at the Bayly home on Monday afternoon a spare wheel was on the back, according to Mr Walker, yet when it was found on Tuesday afternoon, he said, it was seen one of the wheels had been changed, apparently on the, journey, and that the discarded wheel was in the back of the car.

“Last time I saw Elsie was about three months ago, when she was happy and bright,” said Mr Walker. “On that occasion she said she was quite happy at Mrs Bayly’s place and I gave her a cheque for £3. It was arranged between us that I should meet her about a week ago yesterday, when I would have gone to Mrs Bayly’s house. Sfre Avas a normal bright girl and had no worries.”