Stupid Surmises

NZ Truth, Issue 1196, 1 November 1928, Page 7

Stupid Surmises

secretly, has yet to be discovered, but she might have given them to the butcher or. baker,' who may have called daily, or she may have seized the opportunity when • going into Te Puke with her aunt.

But it is as certain as anything can be, that she was frequently engaged m writing, and those who saw her thus engaged concluded

that she was copying out recipes,

Here, for a moment, let us pause to consider the circumstances surrounding the early stages of the case. v

The expressed belief of the police that Eisie Walker drove the car to Auckland can be ruled out for good and all. "Truth" asserts positively that she did nothing of the kind. Nor did she walk from Papatoetoe to Panmure.

Such surmises are as childishly ridiculous as that she died»from exposure or fatigue. They display an amazing iack of mental initiative m those who propounded them m the first place.

The details given by the police to the press, and published m the dailies of Monday, October 8, were of the most meagre nature and entirely misleading.

No mention* was made of the wound*, on Elsie's head, her bloodstained undergarment or handkerchief; neither was the pool of blood beneath her head mentioned.

The hour of tlie car being. taken over by the police was given as 2 p.m. on Tuesday, October 2, whereas it was not notified officially as being abandoned until the morning the next day.

It was also incorrectly stated that the girl had left her uncle's farm at 8.30 a.m. on the. Monday, whereas she was 'last seen alive about 8 p.m. on the Monday night — m the house. Why were all these misleading statements issued to the press? Is it possible that the demonstration at Ellerslie on the Saturday afternoon, and the two days' races following, so deeply engrossed the. attention of the detective staff that they had no time to give such a ■s.eries of suspicious, circumstances thei^ebneentrated attention? It certainly looks like it! Aided by the results of a long and painstaking investigation, "Truths. representatives no y w take it upon themselves to reconstruct the story of Elsie Walker's departure from Papamoa to the time of her brutal murder m the" lonely spaces of the-' scoria-bestrewn .paddock at Panmure. To do this, it is necessary to be on the girl's side of the door which was so mysteriously closed, and which concealed both herself and her murderer, or the man. who ;may have driven her to meet him— for it may be surmised that the actual abductor r of the girl acted as the go-between, and that another man met her at her journej^'s end. . That Monday night the suri set 'at 5.34, and, being, full moon on the preceding Saturday, the moon had not risen till a couple of hours or so later: