CRIME IN AUSTRALIA.

Shannon News, 5 August 1924, Page 3

CRIME IN AUSTRALIA.

MELBOURNE, August 3. The body of a girl, Irene Tucker - man, eleven years of age, was found in a street in Caulfield early this morning in a hessian bag. Apparently she had been strangled < and it is believed she was outraged. The girl left her home in Caulfield on Saturday morning and was not afterwards seen alive. A motor car was heard in the vicinity where the body was found early this morning. The police have a clue, but details are meagre.

MELBOURNE, August 4. Irene Tuckerman was sent at eleven on Saturday morning by her brother to obtain three shillings from her mother, who. is a widow and works in a grocery shop four hundred yards from the home in Crimea Road. The girl obtained the money- .and immediately left the premises. It Is believed she was seen in Balaklava Road, 800 yards from home, a little after eleven. Apparently she was not seen again alive.

Her disappearance was reported to the police when the mother returned home from work on Saturday night. Shortly before eight on Sunday morning a medical student, B. F. Stewart, and his brother, were proceeding to Church when they saw a bundle on the roadside. On investigation it was found to he an old bran bag tied at the end. Stewart untied the bag and foimd a similar bag inside. This also was untied and the body of the .child was discovered. After satisfying himself that there was no life in the body Stewart notified the police. A dairyman saw the bundle lying on the roadside at 5.30 in the morning. In the dim light he thought it was rubbish and passed on. The little girl was a twin child, one of a family of seven, of whom the mother was fie widow of a returned soldier. Bruises about the neck and chest indicate a desperate struggle and that a cord was used to strangle her.