AN ECHO OF THE WEST COAST MURDER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1853, 16 July 1918, Page 3

AN ECHO OF THE WEST COAST MURDER.

It may ho remembered Hint when Eggers, the West Coast murderer, stood at the stops of the scaffold to exploit l his (-rime, lie assured the officiating clergyman (hat he was not the man who had fatally shot Coiilliiai'd. the driver of .ho oar which was carrying the two mine officials with the moivs wages. This denial on (he edge of eternity may have raised a donhl in the minus of some people, whether the police had lordly tra'-ked down the murderer It. is asserted, however, that the police authorities have in their possession a lot lor written hy Eggers in which he virtually confessed his crime. This letter was to have been delivered hy a friend p- the woman with whom Kggers had been living, hut il did not reach its intended dos tinalion. It is also stated that Mage rs, when he was in (he condemned cell, made repeated efforts to obtain the delivery to him of a small portion of strychnine secreted hy him in a small box containing rare coins, which box had passed into the hands of the police, and that he even communicated with the Justice Department, protesting against the treatment he was receiving. The police officials, however, quietly. Inn surely frustrated all his efforts in this direction. The police are believed to have a suspicion that this was not the (irsi time Kggers had doin' a man to death. Some years hack a man who was known to have some i'J.OOO in his possession was fatally shot in Sydney; Iml the murderer was never apprehended, nor was the money recovered. A certain suspicion attaches to Kggers in connection with this murder, Tie was in Sydney at (hat time, and shortly afterwards arrived in the Dominion. So far as (he poliee wore aide lo ascertain, he had done no work for (wo or three years prior to I tie'West Coast murder. If we had lived during this lime on the proceeds of u previous crime the exhaustion of his funds may have compelled him to the perpetration of the murder of which he was convicted. The threads of Eggers’ career have now been gathered together. He was charged under his correct name, and he was born in South Australia of German parents. He had been in Court twice before —on the second occasion on a charge of forgery, of which he was found guilty, and for which lie received a sentence of two years’ imprisonment.