FATALLY SHOT

Hokitika Guardian, 17 October 1933, Page 7

FATALLY SHOT

MELBOURNE GUNMAN’S CRIME

MURDERER ESCAPES IN CAR,

MELBOURNE', October 14

.Tames John, agccl 25, a labourer, of Collingwootl, Alelbourne, was fatally wounded early yesterday morning when a man fired s'.’x shots at him. He was walking home along Gore Street, Fitzroy, when a. man jumped from a motor-car and fired the shots.

The man sprang back into the car, which was driven by another man, and the car disappeared at a high speed into an adjoining street. The shooting occurred at 1.40 a.m. and -John died in the Alelbourne Hospital at 2.45 a-ni. One of the bullets passed through the back of his neck another perforated his left lung, a third lodged in his

stomach and two bullets lodged in bis thighs. Jack Chrisfield a boxer, with whom John was walking home, was not fired at.

The police say they believe tile murder of John may have arisen from a shooting affray two days earlier, in which Daniel IT.ossnck, aged, 25, was wounded in the back. Chrisfield 1 old the police that he, John and three other men left a club .at midnight to go home. They walked through the Exhibition Gardens to- the corner of two streets where two of the men left them. The third left a little later. Chrisfield said that as he and John approached his (Chrisfiekl’s) home John noticed a grey touring car behind them and said, “We are being followed. Perhaps it is a police car.” The car passed them slowly and stopped about 10yds. ahead of them. A man jumped out from alongside the driver and fired a pistol at John, who fell. Holding one hand over Irs face, apparently to hide his identity, the man fired two more shots at John. The murderer then advanced and fired three shots into the fallen man’s back.

Chrisfield ran away soon after the first shot was fired. One cf the six shots fired missed John and buried itself in the asphalt footpath.