MOAT FARM MYSTERY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5362, 10 December 1928, Page 3

MOAT FARM MYSTERY.

“ MURDER WILL OUT.” A STRIKING EXAMPLE. The reference in this eqlumn recently (says a writer to the “Dominion”) to the length of the law’s aim recalls the famous Moat Farm mystery, whjch ranks among the most fascinating and striking examples of the truth of the saying that “mur4er will out.”

Samuel Herbert Dougal, a shiady character, who had had three wives, reCGgpised in Cdmelle Oecile Holland, a spinster of fifty-six, an emotiqnallystarved woman, courted) her for her inheritapce of £7OOO, apd t<Wk her to live with him op a lonely Essex farm, near, Wavering, on April 27, 1899.) Four years later to a day Miss Holland’s body was exumedi from a drainage ditch adjoining the property. The couple had lived! together at Moat Farm —the “romantic” Dougal gave the property the name about three weeks, since, on Friday, May 19. 1899, he announced that he was taking Miss Holland for, a shopping excursion. They left together in a trap, and Miss Holland was not again seen alive. For. the ensuing, four years Dougal lived a life qf bucolic debauchery on Miss Holland’s fortune.

He successfully forged her signature over that period, the manager of the National Provincial Bank in Piccadilly receiving frequent requests signed apparently by “Camille Cecile Holland” to send money to Moat Farm or tb sell securities.

The reasop for the man’s immunity from the jaw was probably due to the district being very sparsely populated, and the clever manner in which the scoundrel had fostered the rumours that Miss Holland had left him qn account of his conduct with the maids. Dougal’s’’undoing ,was due tq his own stupidity.; He brought his legal jvif# back to live with him, but she later ran away, and when Dqugal ap-= Plied for. a. divorce the King’s Proctor intervened, ip the meantime the local constable had) reported op the suspicions qf the countryside, and Dougpl was held on a charge of forgery. To establish the capital charge it was necessary to find Miss Holland’s body, and as a result qf a four months’ search the remains of the body were recovered.’ A verdict of guilty was and Dougal confirmed the jury’s finding in one wqrd to the officiating chaplain at the moment the executioner pulled the lever.