JEALOUSY HORROR

Hokitika Guardian, 6 December 1932, Page 8

JEALOUSY HORROR

A DOUBLE TRAGEDY.

IN NORTH WEST AUSTRALIA

.SYDNEY, 'November 25

For tlie iscuv/iu ume waaju a fortliignt a .tala ol horror has reaelieu Sydney from the great North-west.

At Ahrrutri miles from Sydney, thjie is a house m wmch, inciuemcally t.;e h-val coroiur, Heri>ert Walker, was found dead less than, three weeks ago. Tills, however has no bearing on my present tragic story. In the nyix t room lived a shoemaker, Lylt .\ t ithtos, a ma.i about 40 years old, who had been in the township about two years. He was a widower—for a*.to be explained later—and In had three children ranging from fourteen years to nine.

Id tliib house a few weeks ago came one Isabella Golden, a woman of 25, as his housekeeper. She had three children from four to eight years old. and their faher was Alexander Hill. The woman Golden had lived with Hill ior ten jmhih, but she left him for Withers last August and lie went to Queensland. On hi« return be seems to have quarrelled with Withers about her, and because of his threats the 100. ,1 hotel-keeper next door, who was Withers’ landlord, refused Hill lodging. Withers seems to have been afraid of Hill, but this quarrel was not the cai.se of the subsequent tragedy. Last Saturci y week, about midnight, the hotel folk were awakened by terrible screams from next door. Ihr hotel ■ porter helped four terrified children, their night clothes spattered with blood, to scramble over the fence and, rushing into the adjoining house he faced la ghastly spectacle. Withers oam e down the ipassag?-Wny' with a bullet wound in his chest and a horrible g/ sli in his throat, and inside the bedroom they found the body of the’ woman Golden, her head battered with a soldering iron, and' almost severed from the trunk. Withers was soon dead and mil that the newcomers could do was to rescue two more screaming and terrified infants of four and five years.

Before Withers died lie muttered the ua my of some man, lappa ruitly charging, h'm with murder, and Hill, who was, nisi I explained, the father of Isabella Golden’s children, was promptly arrested. Then t> me the inquest. The eldest, a girl of fourteen, made it plain that her father had frequently quarrelled with “Mrs Hill” and had told lps daughter that he had discovered that the woman had been “out with a boy.” On that awful night, the girl heard hyr father charging th e wonihn with unfaithfulness to him—and then came .shrieks for help the report of n gun—and so, the horrible end’ng. Tn view of all the evidence available, the c roner decided that it wars..a plain case of murder and suicide, the motive being jealousy, 'aim the mail Hill was, at once: released. ‘ : But the evidence submitted by the' oolice at the inquiry throw a terribly lurid light upon the dead man’s past. For this was not the first woman that Withers had murdered; In-1924, then living in the Tamworth district he had allowed his wife to go with the children to Kingston, near Barraba (350 miles from ’Sydney) to keep horise for a. man named Missen, who was married to Mrs Withers’ aunt. But when Withers tried to induce his wife to return to him she refused and, going to Misisen’s home, lie stayed there for a time, and found evidence that roused his suspicions. He charged her with infidelity and left the house but came back at night, ealleu her out to speak to him and l shot her dead. ■At th e trial Withers was found guilty of man-' slaughter, “under strong provocation,” with a recommit ndiat ion for mercy from the jury. ' He was sentenced to only twelve' months’ hard labour, hut the Crown lodged an appeal, under the Crimes Amendment Act, on the ground that the sentence was inadequate.' At the rehearing of the case his sentence was increased to seven years’ penal servitude.

Blit after five yuiars some kindly people in the district petitioned for his release and so he was set free in 1930, “on parole.” This is how Lyle Withers came to Narrabri—a man, apparently, in whom jealousy was closely allied to madness, and whom such frenzy always tended to take a homicidal form.

It is a horrible story, but it should be particularly interesting to the alienists who make p. special study of homicidal mania, end also to the philanthropists who acre always eager to advocate the release of any criminal from custody, no matter how black his record if only he professes repentance and promises “never to doit again.”