A FANTASTIC MURDER

Hokitika Guardian, 23 February 1929, Page 8

A FANTASTIC MURDER

HATRED THEORY

NEW YORK, Dec. 31

' The New York police, under the new Commissioner, Mr Grover Whalen, have been called upon to solve what is considered one .of the most fantastic murder mysteries which has confronted the department for years.

The vicitm, Henry Gaiv, a night watchman at the laboratory of Guggenheim Brothers, was apparently forced to drink coffee into which the murderer had poured a quantity of cyanide of potassium.

The man’s death might he ascribed to suicide were it not for the presence of a mysterious man, who held up, bound, and robbed two lorry drivers who reached the laboratory early in the morning with a consignment off tear gas. This man admitted the drivers in the regular way,, hut after felling one with a pistol butt, compelled the other to hind his colleague.

The intruder then took about £o from the pockets of the drivers and left them both hound in a room adjoining that where Gaiv lay dead. The police believe that this robbery was merely designed to mislead them into attributing Gaw’s death to a holdup. ' They are convinced that his murder was so cold-blooded that it could only have been committed to satisfy intense hatred. They surmise that the intruder entered the laboratory for the solo purpose off killing Gaw, and, finding him eating his supper, poured the poison into his coffee, which was half consumed. Gaw’s lips and tongue were horribly burned, chemical analysis showing that the coffee contained a- large amount of the poison. If robbery was the object of Gaw’s slayer the police are unable to account for the fact that a man with plenty of time to obtain valuable diugs and chemicals took nothing beyond the pocket-money off the drivers who had arrived unexpectedly before daybreak. One of the drivers is convinced that he had seen the robber working aboutthe laboratory on previous visits, and it is assumed that he was a former employee with whom Gaw may have quarrelled. This, the police say, would explain how he knew the deadly effect of the poson and where to obtain it.