The Campbelitown Mystery.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, Issue III, 28 July 1891, Page 2

The Campbelitown Mystery.

"♦. . „ THE INQUEST. Yesterday afternoon the Coroner in the distrc'-, Mr E. S. Thynn_e, hald.an inquiry into how the remains found near Ca.mpbellfcown came'to be ! jfchere, at Mr McLennan'a hpmestead, Ox Ova Downs. . . ;

The following were sworn in as a j ur y : — John MoLennan (foreman), Bernard Spelman, 0. Robinson, J. E. Stansell, C. Burgess and J. R. McMillan. The following evidence was tendered : — William Green, being sworn, saith —I am part owner of a piece of land in the horse shoe near Campbelltown where the skeleton the jury have seen was found. On Friday, the seventeenth of this month, I was just walking through the flax on this land about hah* past ten o'clock in the morning, looking for rabbits, when I noticed a skull on the ground near a flax bush. I then noticed the buckle of a belt (produced) sticking up through the grass. I put my finger into the buckle and gave it a pull and brought' up a few bones. » I left and went round the fences, and got to the tent about noon. I told the man William tioberts, who is working for me, what I had seen. After dinner Roberts and myself went to have a look at the remains and then pulled the strap clear out of the .ground. Afterwards we scraped some of the ground away from the lower part of the trunk and we noticed something which resembled a part of a waistcoat, and found that from out of the pocket had tumbled a piece of leather boot lace (produced) and* lump of iron, which were boot protectors. I re-placed the bones as I had found them. I took the iron, shoe lace and belt to the Constable at Bulls, but he having said it was in Constable Gillespie's district I took the things to him at Foxton on the following Monday. ,By the Constable — The body appeared to be lying flat on its back. William Roberts, being sworn, sajth-T-The last witness, William Green, told me on Friday, the seventeenth of July, that he had found a skul! close to the flax bush. After we had dinner we went to have a look, and I saw a skull lying on ithe ground about two feet away from a flax bush, and about the grass some more •"bpnef. \\ Iysaw the belt (produced) sticking through the grass and we pulled it up; and some bones witlj it, and what looked like a piece of the waistcoat and a leather boot*' lac,e.,, f I; spraped the ground/ % ;bit a,nd j tound - that there were a Ipi of Jbones about. I. put the bones- j)4ck .ftgajn, and covered them, up with a [tftistje. .We, -then left, ; On the following, [Monday I again saw ' the .skeleton, in company with Constable ; Gillespie. I helped him to digi t up., ; The greater portion of the body was , underground. One leg , appeared to have been crossed; ; One arm, the left, was lying out straight from the shoulder. The skull had some" hair attached to it, no more than'ooow appears upon it. It is very fair. We found a black handle pocket knife, a skein of elastic, and various buttons. The one's produced , are the same. The waistcoat I. should take to have been a light brown saddle tweed, and portions of a check and flannel shirt were also found. A wooden pencil, was also 'found, the same as is now produced. The spot where the bones laid had all the appearance of having been dug to receive them, as the ground was looser. The ground was peat with v a clay hottom, but the bones wefe laying oil the clay. ! John. Gillespie, being sworn, saith I am the constable stationed at i Foxton. On Saturday the eighteenth instant I received a telegram from Inspebtor Thomson of Wellington notifying me that a skeleton had been found by Mr Green on his section on the Oroua Downs Estate. ;I left for Mr Green's place. On my arrival I found no one there. On the, Monday the twentieth Mr Green called, at the police station Foxton, qiid reported the finding of the skeleton. He handed m 6 this strap (produced) also the bootlace and a lump of iron, which he thought were staples. ' Shortly after he left I broke it up and found there were seventeen boot protectors. He, Green, instructed the last witness William Roberts to go with me and point out the skeleton, which he did. He pointed out the spot and I noticed that the skull and a portion of the upper part of the skeleton 1 had been recently disturbed. I noticed on the skull two tufts of what I took to be fair hair, I also noticed that the body had been placed on its back. I removed what bones I could with the hand which were principally the rib bones, I then had to dig up the remainder. On digging up the thigh bones and the legs I noticed that they were much deeper than the shoulders were, the right leg bone was bent at the knee and crossed over the left leg. The left arm was extended at right angles to tbe body. Just where the wrist would be at the right arm I found a large white pearl or pawa shell button (produced). Also found a knife (produced) a three bladed. pocket knife, two large black .buttons, apparently bone, one vest button, one shirt button and a vest Ruckle, apiece of black lead pencil, which is in a perfect state of preservation, the lead of which appears to have been sharpened by either a file or .a stone. I also noticed around where the ribs were, a portion of a light coloured waistcoat, a small piece of white under-flannel shirt and a piece of black and white check shirt. I searched carefully and cquld.fi.nd neither boots, trousers, or

my other article of 'clothing. I found a piece of elastic which apparently came from the waistcoat pocket. The lower portion of the body appeared to have been buried , deeper than the other portion the J feet had the appearance of having been buried a foot underground. The upper portion of -th& body: had been lying across a stick or a root of a tree. I took particular /notice of the ground, when digging and tried a portion of the ground at a little distance from the body' and ~T came to the conclusion that a -hole had been dug to receive the body. I examined all the bones carefully but could find nd breakages. I brought all the articles now produced away with me, but left the skeleton there. I returned with Detective Herbert on the following Thursday and we again searched the grave carefully, but found nothing except two small bones. We put the bones in a box and left it at Mr Green's tent that night and went to Campbelltown to make enquiries as to any one being missing from the district. The following day? owe conveyed the remains to then 50roua Downs station to await .the -'inqfaest. The peat was about a foot deep r above the clay in the^grave.' P'noticed several rat holes, and seferal f *of 'the small bones were displaced', "which I took to have '■■bVeti caWed% . 7 the rats. From the appearance' ! 6f the straps pencil, 1 bootlace// knif# and elastic I should think, that the man had been dead' not ltfore than two years, I noticed no < clay, raised: with the peat in the 1 filling in of the grave. Patrick Herbert, being sworn, saith I am, a detective stationed at Wellington. On Thursday, the twenty third instant, I accompanied ' Constable Gillespie to, the nlagerwbere the skeleton was found, and was present when he examined the grave fqr further traces, fie and I put the remains in a coffin, l&aM Amoved them from the place. . From the appearance of the boot lace, elastic and pencil; which atef said tojfeaye been found with theiremftins, I should say they have not been more than twelve ! to eighteen! months in .$$ ®xjund. ; :ißy the c6n.stable-hT.heue aref clear traces of the man . having been, ftujied from the - difference \n the,, Datura of the soil, it being looser roundithe) remains than a f^wiyards-away,! .,( Thomas Lee Porter*,; being /duly sworn, saith'— l am!a legally qualified medical praeticioner /residing, at* ( Palmerston. Today I have! ■ examined the skeleton, the Bubjeot of this inquest, and I find the/ skeleton; teH be that of a middle age : man. As far as. I could judge, he would have been^ about five feet seven inches in height He was fully growri but not aged. The third rib on the left! side .was broken . There is a i little : flesh on the right shin bone, and tendon about each knee-pan. There Lis a triangular patchy three and a half by one and a half inches, ; behind the left ear, looking like blood/ Between two of the vertebrae, and on one side of another one frora. <was some cartilage. , Judgjng,sy,''wnat is left on the bones, X/dff' n^tj .think he has been dead above a 'yeHi^'ov two. There was nofilgn^fcuijury to the bones except jipfto^fre rib I have mentioned. There is a little light hair on the skull left. ~~ The "second lower left bicusbid tootft is broken off, and the other teeth are very good and but little worn.; - ~kf* John VcLennan, being sworn, saith — The Jand where the skeleton was found, on Mr Green's property on the Oroua Downs estate, has only latterly been sold to Mr Giteettan'd Mr McLean. Prior to that it(ha» -been a part of the estate. Two yeans' ago the flax growing upon "thiailand, was let to John Dalton fori %xh nrfilUig purposes, and he had.. men-mcUfaki^g from it. . Eighteen, ; years *ago ) the greaterportion was a yery watsswaihp. I 1 know of no one [having* beehimiseing. . The Jury almost , immediately brought in the following verdici 5That the said man , to the. Jurors aforesaid unknown on the 17fch of July in the year aforesaid (18j91),r in a certain paddock at the Oroua Downs estate, the property ef Messrs r Green and McLean was found! dead, and that the said man ro to ,'thW : Jtirofs aforesaid unknown had b 6 marks of violence appearing on his body, but how or what means he came to bjs death no evidence d6tti l appear7' : ; ' *