CLUE TO MURDER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 884, 30 January 1930, Page 11

CLUE TO MURDER

SENSATIONAL TURN AT ENGLISH TRIAL GARAGE MYSTERY SEQUEL Reed. 0.5 a.m. LONDON, Wed. During the trial of William Podmore in connection with the discovery of the body of Vivian Messiter in a garage at Southampton, there was a sensational development. The police unexpectedly found Messiter’s watch and keys in the cistern of a public lavatory at Southampton. The chief interest at the trial was focussed on the witnesses Cummings and Goulden, who gave evidence of alleged conversations with Podmore when both, were in prison. Cummings said they discussed the possibility of finding the watch and keys, whereupon Podmore said: ‘‘Yes, if they could find them, I should be guilty of murder.” The convicts were dramatically cross-examined by Podmore’s counsel. The arrest of William Podmore on December 17 was the outcome of a sensational mystery in Southampton, where the body of Vivian Messiter was found 11 months previously in a private garage, the door of which was locked from the outside. He had been missing for 10 weeks. The theory of the police was that tho murder was committed "away from the garage and that the body was taken there subsequently. A post-mortem examination revealed the fact that death occurred two months before the discovery. Deceased was last seen on October 30. William Podmore, a witness at the inquest, whose statement to the police suggested that he was the last man to see Messiter alive, was arrested by Scotland Yard officers as he was leaving Wandsworth Prison. Messiter was a major with the Canadian troops in the war. It is believed he had a wife in America. The murder was committed soon after his appointment to Southampton as the manager of an American oil company.