CRIME IN SYDNEY

Hokitika Guardian, 10 September 1932, Page 6

CRIME IN SYDNEY

A BUSY TIME FOR OFFICIALS.

SEVERAL MYSTERIES UNSOLVED

SYDNEY, September 6

The last few days have been extremely busy ones for coroners and magistrates, detectives and police. Four important inquests have been field, on the death .of Victor Say well, who; was brutally murdered in his home four months ago; on the death of Hilda White, who was murdered in Centennial Park four weeks ago; on the death of Nola Medway, a girl of sixteen, whose father has been arrested on a charge of manslaughter ; and on the death of Police Constables Bush and McCunn, who were run down by a motor-car and killed while discharging their du'ties on the Harbour Bridgethree weeks ago.

The Say well case still remains one of the darkest mysteries ii> Sydney’s criminal annals, but the police are believed to be in a position to produce evidence which may lead to startling developments. Mrs Say well, who was ferociously attacked at the time of her husband’s murder, has to* some extent recovered, but it is doubtful if sh§ will regain completely her reason or even her power of speech. The- other tragedies involve facts that will be laid before the Courts in dne course, and the accident which brought two policemen to an untimely end on the Harbour Bridge has been the starting point for a widespread agitation to secure a larger measure of safety from motor traffic for police in particular arid for the general public as well. TRIAL OF SEE HOP.

A case which involved tragedy but might have had a still, more tragic sequel vvas the trial of . See Hop,., a Chinese gardener, f0r.... shooting Alexander Shearer at Ryde last month. The evidence showed that Shearer .had frequently interfered wi'th the Chinese market gardeners in the vicinity, and that he practically invaded their land, damaging their property and threatening them wi’th serious injury. In this case Shearer was certainly the agressor, and See Hop, who has been in? Australia forty years and seems quite a respectable citizen, having been badly knocked about, .eventually fired his gun in self-defence. The! police evidently thought that Shearer was re, sponsible for the whole trouble, and the jury acquitted See Hop ' without calling upon the defence. It is satisfactory 'to know that in .spite of the prejudice in-favour of Europeans as against Orientals here, a Chinese cari secure 4‘even-handed justice” when the law is called in to pronounce its decision.

iSUICIDEi-OF BLIND MAN../,

• Three weeks ago, Christopher. R. Hepburn, the blind sou, of a! wealthy, widow, Mrs Cabot, died suddenly afi, Forbes. Two years ago lie Was accidentally shot in one eye and filter lost the eight of tbiaf other. A well-to-do acocuntant, he had always suffered from “nerves,” and after he became blind frequently spoke of committing suicide. His , relations and friends did their best to keep him cheerful and happy, and no poison was even kept, in the house. . But, on that fatal morning, at 2 a.m., footsteps were heal’d on the verandah, followed by a suppressed cry from Hepburn j and he was found dying with a bottle of cyanide near at hand, Mrs Cabot is positive of two things —that she heard the footsteps of someone wearing, licets or shoes while, heh son’s feetf were bare, and that there' was no cyanide kept in the house, while even if it had been there iti would have been impossible for him, blind as he was, to find it. The mem- • fcers of the family and two of his friends, Gordon and Grey, testified that they had never assisted him. to procure any means of .-elf-destruct .on ; and the Coroner found that Hepburn, had died from cyanide poisoning, leaving the source from which the poison was procuned still an open question. But the police were.not satisfied and rumours began to float about to the effect that Hepburn had offered friends £2OO or ,even £4OO to get him a revolver or a razor. His bank accounts wee investigated and were, all - in order, and bis will bequeathed £IOO to each of several friends and the balance of his estate—about £lsoo—to his mother. Now the police have j apparently unearthed some further, clue and two detectives, have been sentby the C. 1.8. to Forbes to make fur-,, tlier investigations. The police apparently believe that somebody,wtis induced or bribed to procure the poison for Hepburn, and they make no secret of the fact that anyone who took this responsibility will at once be made answerable as “accessory befoyd the fact” on a charge of murder. I