ACID AND KNIFE

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 252, 26 October 1942, Page 4

ACID AND KNIFE

SOCIETY WOMEN THREATENED. ARREST OF SYDNEY MAN. Threats against five Sydney society women were allegedly made by Leo'nard Raymond Ford, aged 23, wlio appeared in the Central Police Court Ihe other day charged with having demanded money with menaces. Police declared that Ford threatened to throw sulphuric acid in the faces of four women, and to stab the daughter of another. He demanded sums of money ranging from £160 to £200. The women concerned were: — Mrs G. F. Lane and Mrs E. M. Cragen, of Bellevue Hill; Mrs T. H. Kelly, of Darling Point; Mrs D. Macrae, of Point Piper, and Mrs G. S. Packard, Fullerton street, Woollahra. Detective-Sergeant Jones said that on August 31 Mrs Lane received this letter: —

"What does it feel like to be stabbed with a long, sharp knife? I have had such a knife for five years, and I've always had the thought in the back of my mind that some day I would be forced to use it. "I am now in desperate need of £200. I expect you will give me the money. If you don't I will put the knife in your daughter Norma. I have often felt like driving a knife into someone and watching how their eyes go." Mrs Lane, after calling in the police, arranged for a parcel to be placed at a spot mentioned in the letter, and Ford was arrested when he picked up the parcel. Detective-Sergeant Jones said that Ford had told hina he got the names and addresses of the women from a telephone book. He said he had no intention of carrying out his threats, and declared he read about squii'ting acid on victims in an American crime magazine. v