MOVIE STRUCK

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 150, 17 February 1932, Page 7

MOVIE STRUCK

young girl shot WOUNDED BY REYOLVER IN SYDNEY TENEMENT HOUSE SCENE OP WILD REVELS. SYDNEY, Wednesday. In a dingy tenement house in Dick Street, Chippendale, amid the squalor and sordid surroundings of a sparsely furnished room, a pretty girl, Elsie May Chown, 16i years (known as Winne Chown) stepped back from several arguing men with a bullet in her abdomen. The first indication that a hidden pistol had spat a bullet at the girl was when she staggered from. the building assisted by two men, and was bundled into a taxi-cab and taken to the Prince Alfred Hospital. Police are now searching for the two men. who accompanied the girl to the hospital and Ieft immediately they had escorted her into the casualty room. A wall of silence met the police when they interviewed the girl. In an exaggerated American drawl, she said, in answer to their inquiries, "Aw, naw, nuthin." She later made a statement, saying that the shooting was accidental. Although Dick Street is only 20ft wide, and is densely populated, only one neighbour, Mrs. L. Grey, heard the shot — a ping — and then she saw the girl being lifted into the waiting taxi. Scene of Kevels. For weeks now accoring to the police and neighbours, the house where the shooting occurred has been the scene of revels lasting well into the early hours of the morning, It is said to be a rendezvous of unemployed, and this fact has not helped the police in their investigations as to who were the men on the premises when the shot was fired.

There were a number of men in the house at 9 o'clock this morning when Winnie Chown was shot. A sudden stampede followed the shooting, and a neighbour saw several men run out the back way, while another appeared in the yard with a revolver. He glaneed around, and hurried back into the house, and disapjpeared through the front door. In Film Quest Contest. Although police were quickly on the scene, they fonnd the house deserted. Old coats and trousers were strewn about the bare floors, and the walls, disfigured by toru paper, were here and there plastered with pictures of screen stars. Anita Page looked out into a room which contained a table and two chairs, some shaving gear, and an empty trunk. A thorough seareh of the premises failed to reveal any weapon. For some time, Winne Chown has been seen about the house with a girl friend. She is decidedly pretty, rather tall for her age, and has an amhition to go in for the "talkies." She is said to have entered a film star competition. Her Yersion. At the hospital the girl refused tc speak to the detectives before going to the operating theatre, but later made a statement to Detectives Sherringham and Sedgwick. She went to Dick Street, she said, to see her sweetheart, one of the unemployed living there. They were sitting on the edge of the bed talking when a man took a revolver from a drawer and commenced to clean it. They were discussing her chances as a talkie star when the revolver went off accidentally.