MURDER CHARGE

Hokitika Guardian, 16 January 1933, Page 5

MURDER CHARGE

FURNACE CAUGHT

50,000 POLICE :ON MAN-HUNT.

(United Press Association—jßy Electric

Telegraph—Copyright;

(Received Jan. 16th. at ,10.30 a.m.) LONDON, January 15.

Samuel James Furnace, aged thirtynine, was discovered 'staying in a house at Soutnend, and. was' taken into custody and charged ;with murder. This was the bald statement ending one of the most interesting-man hunts in the history of English crime. Furnace had not disguised himself, and did cot resist when apprehended. When, the police entered he was sitting before a fire, his reluctance to leave which, was ascribed to illness by his aged landlady. * ' _

A London message on January 9 stated: Scotland Yard has - broadcast that Samuel Furnace is .. wanted for the murder of Walter Spatchett at his office near Hampstead., The announcement follows a five days’ hunt for Furnace, wherein 50,000 police throughout the country have been engaged. f ■ ■ \ \ . What appeared to .be a simple case of. a man overcome by. smoke in a sudden fir© in his .office'.while typing at a desk has developed extraordinarily into a murder mystery. "Samuel Furnace, a master builder at Chalk Farm, had his offic© in a shed. The'‘alarm was given on Tuesday night that the shed was afire, and a fireman found a man, later identified as Furnace, amid the ruins. The first 'sensation occurred when the post-mortem examination by Sir Bernard Spitobury (Pathologist to the Home Office) revealed three shots in the body. - Now tile detectives have found that the dead man is not Furnace, but Walter Spatchett, ■ a young rent-coltoct-or: •; The police are searching for, -Furnape, of whom a full description was broadcast to-night. Brig.-r Gen. Crozier told •; a., representative, of the “Daily Sketch” .that he remembered Spatchett as- a secret servied agent of the “Black and Tans” during the Irish troubles in 1921. The police theory, is that the murderer, was inspired by political vengeance and that he set fife. to .the office to conceal-the crime. ..