BOMB OUTRAGE SUSPECT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26618, 14 November 1947, Page 5

BOMB OUTRAGE SUSPECT

NINE-YEAR-OLD SYDNEY CASE MURDER CHARGE FOLLOWS ARREST Rec. 9 p.m. SYDNEY, Nov. 13. A man was arrested and charged today for a bomb outrage which resulted in the death of two people in the suburb of Lidcombe in 1938. He is Sydney Baden Powell Shannon, aged 47, a slaughterman at the Homebush Abattoirs. At the Burwood Court he was charged with the murder of Alfred Ernest Smith, 51, a union organiser, and his wife, Mary Ann Smith. A remand was granted and bail was refused. The police said that the defendant was charged by a warrant on the direction of the Attorney-general and was arrested by virtue of that warrant. Throughout the years his whereabouts had been known to the police. The arrest was made by two detectives of the homicide squad after investigations made by the Criminal Investigation Branch over nine years. The explosion in which the Smiths died occurred in the early morning of January 28 1938. It rocked houses hundreds of yards away and shattered the front bedroom in which were Smith and his wife. Portion of a brick wall was blown out and a gaping hole was torn in the roof. Both Smith and his wife died instantly. Smith’s hands were blown off and a portion of his fingers were scattered around the room, supporting the police theory that he had the bomb in his hands meaning to hurl it from the room when it exploded. Three children of the dead couple were in the next room, but were unharmed. In the wreckage were about a dozen bolts and screws and also a horse shoe, which was believed to have formed part of the bomb.