A BAFFLING CRIME

Hokitika Guardian, 4 September 1930, Page 2

A BAFFLING CRIME

"FACE AT THE WINDOW. , EPSOM DOWNS’ TRAGEDY. LONDON, July 25. There is no need to buy an expensive seven-aiid-sixpenny book to get a thriller. The news from day to day unfolds as exciting a tale as ever was found between the covers of a Conan Doyle, and just now we are reading instalments of one which is still wrapt in mystery. Now more than six weeks after, the murder of Agnes Kesson on the Epsom Downs, presumably on Derby Day or early on the morning after, is still as far from solution as ever.

All search for the murderer, or the existence of a motive for murdering her among the people with whom she came in contact, has so far led to an impasse, both Mr Deats, her employer, and Bob Harper, her "young man,” having accounted for their movements to the police. There is no trace of the clothing which she is believed to have worn—and they were startling enough in colour—a red jersey and a Macdonald tartan skirt, when she left the house in which she was employed at Burgh Heath, One i« almost persuaded to believe that suggestion in crime lias some sort of mass influence. Another still unsolved mystery is Hhe death of a woman found without her stockings. The body of Agnes Kesson was found clad only ill torn, mud-bespattered underclothes, one garment inside out, and her 'body had apparently been brought to the ditch, in which it was found, in a motor-car, tor motor oil and cigarette ash were, found near. What, in ail conscience can hu.ve been the motive for murder of this kind? If? this death due to a homicidal maniac, and is homicidal mania manifesting itself in other parts of the country? A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE. . The police have during the last week been reconstructing the ■ .crime, a policeman taking the part of the, body, taken there in a motor and strangled—for the medical evidence points to Agnes Keeson having been (strangled. But no reconstruction of crime brings the murder home to any murderer as yet known. All the meagre incidents of her leaving her situation as waitress at the Nook, Burgh Heath, known so far. are that her trunk Was taken away by Carter Paterson and delivered at Carsha’ton, but «he herself, ieft alone, according to Mr .Deats, (between two and. three o’clock. She spoke to an unknown person over the telephone shortly before, and when he asked, "Ybti are not going yet, are you? 1 thought you promised to wait fqr Bob?” she replied, "Bob knows adiere 1 am going Mrs Young is to Ijeep the box until I Write her from Scotland.’’. Mre Young being cook at the King’s Arms. Cnrshaßon.

,: Mr Deats gave evidence of all tills and went on to say . how, on going to the door, he found Agnes Keeson had gone, whether by omnibus ,or not he ■does not know. The next afternoon— Derby Day—he thinks he saw her go by riding pillion on the ’back of a motor-cycle towards Tadsworth. Mr Deats’s next action was that, as he believed she took some £7 that he had missed, he went to the police station at Wallington that night to try—without success—to get a warrant to search her box. He was accompanied by Harper, who, when they found she had not reached Carshalton, ’became anxious about her. Harper and Deats’s son paid a second visit to Carshalton towards midnight. and next day Harper wrote to her sister in Scotland inquiring for news of her. There was none. CONTRADICTORY EVIDENCE. The ascertained facts of the case proving to be but blind trails, the character of Agnes Kesson next calls for sam3 consideration. Here one conies up against contradictory evidence, Mr Deats describes 'her as reserved, and yet others say she was lively and passionately fond of dancing. while Harper; with whom she was walking out, apd who was jealous of other men, says she was quick-tempered, and has described a quarrel over a policeman acquaintance of hers, during which she kicked him and swore at him, and he said "Shut up, ; or I will choke you.”

One complication in the crime—the alleged fact that she was seen on Derby Day just after the big race walking among the crowds on the heath, has been removed from consideration this week by the discovery that Agnes Kesson had a double, and quite a lot of' excitement which was created by reports that, she had 'been seen on the course at the Derby and elsewhere has flickered out since the existence of a double has become known, and the hunt for the young man with whom she was supposed to have been seen who walked in a juanty, swaggering fashion, and wore a cap, grey suit and brown shoes, has now died down. Rut one possible clue lies in the incident described by Mr Deats when he heard tapping at the window, and saw a face at the window. He said: “I was squaring up m.v hooks for the day before going to bed. It was a face with small features, and the peak of the cap”—he pulled his own cap slightly askew—“was, jujst like this. I am hard of hearing, but that night was so .quiet/one of the. quietest for