MYSTERY DEATH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22221, 23 September 1935, Page 16

MYSTERY DEATH

CHARRED REMAINS FUNERAL PYRE BUILT GRIM DISCOVERY IN ASHES [from oun own correspondent] SYDNEY, Sept. 17 The charred remains of a man were found yesterday in the ashes of a smouldering fire in a lonely part of National Park, Sutherland. '.Detectives decided that the man had committed suicide. They now believe that ho worked for nearly a day to build himself a funeral pyre; that he crawled into the middle of it, set fire to it and then shot himself.

This theory is supported by the discovery of a pea-riflo in the ashes, close to the body, and by the report of two relief workers that they saw a man acting strangely in the valley where the body was found. The body was so badly charred that it was impossible to establish tho cause of death. The ashes of tho fire will probably bo sifted in an attempt to find a bullet. Tho police are hopeful of establishing the dead man's identity from a description supplied by the relief workers.

George Green and Albert Bell, of Sutherland, were passing through a gully in National Park, about three miles from Sutherland, when they saw a man standing beside a pile of wood, on which ho was heaping logs. "We knew that something was wrong from the first," Mr. Green explained later. "When wo reached tho pile of wood wo saw that the logs had been set up with great care, with a spaco in tho centre, and an opening at one side. The man who built it evidently knew all about fires. It was just the sort of pile in which a bullock might bo roasted.

"The man stopped working when he saw us, but did not say a word. Ho was short, thick set, with greying hair and a round face, and was wearing ordinary clothes, which seemed unsuitod to tho work he was doing. Bell said, 'Aro you building a fire?' but there \va« 110 answer. A\o staged in tho valley for some tiino, wondering what we ought to do. We thought that a body might be hidden near by, and looked about. We failed to /aid anything, and were leaving, when we heard someone following us. AVe stopped, and found the man just behind. He was carrving something wrapped in newspaper, which was obviously a rifle. When we stopped lie turned abruptly and went back the way he had come. ,,