MURDER MYSTERY

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 789, 9 October 1929, Page 9

MURDER MYSTERY

POPULAR ACTOR UNDER SUSPICION MAN FATALLY BATTERED Australian and N.Z . Press Association LONDON, Monday. The people of England are mystified by a tragedy in which Alfred Oliver, aged 60, tobacconist, of Cross Street, Reading, was found bludgeoned to the point of death in his shop, on June 22. His wife left the house at 6.5 p.m. and returned at 6.15 p.m. She found her husband dying. For three months the inquiries made by the police failed to lead to an arrest, but .at the resumed inquest today a strange story was unfolded in the Coroner’s Court. Philip Yale Drew, an actor, aged 50, who was playing the part of a disguised detective in a play called

“The Monster,” which was being staged at Reading at the time of the murder, sat and listened to a long succession of witnesses. They pointed to him as a man whom they had seen behaving strangely outside Oliver’s shop on the evening of the crime. Other witnesses said Drew was late at the theatre that night, and that he afterward explained he had lost the trousers which he usually wore on the stage. A servant in a lodging-house said Drew asked for some benzoline to clean a jacket. He was excitable and nervy. The inquest is expected to last three days. As was related in yesterday’s cable message, Reading crowds cheered Drew on his way to the inquest.