Mistaken Identity.

Manawatu Herald, 12 April 1904, Page 2

Mistaken Identity.

Some days ago it was reported to the police that a man supposed to be Ellis, the alleged Wairarapa murderer, was hiding in the bush near Rata, up Hunterville way. Constables Grey (Hunterville), Black (Marton), and Jackson (Mangaweka) proceeded to Rata and found the suspect to be a young man named Archibald McLeod, who only tallied with the description of Ellis in his matter of height, and who ia some twenty years younger. When McLeod was accosted by the police he said he was doing no harm to anybody j that he was on the King’s highway, and pointed out that it would be wrong to deprive a man of his liberty who had committed no offence. Asked how he got his living, he replied that he fished for eels in the creek. The police then left him alone. Subsequently he was arrested by Constable Black on suspicion of being of unsound mind, and after being medically examined was sent to Porirua asylum. For some weeks previously the poor fellow was to be seen in Hunterville and neighbourhood. He would sit for hours on the railing of the Porewa bridge, and would apeak to no one. He pitched his tent on Mr A. J. Simpson’s property, and as he appeared perfectly harmless the owner did not interfere with him. McLeod was very reticent and nobody here knows where he drifted from.—Hunterville Express.