PONSONBY MURDER.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3442, 23 March 1920, Page 5

PONSONBY MURDER.

POSTMASTER ’S KEYS FOU ND.

VVITH ARMS AND CASH.

(Xuckla.nd Star.)

1 The police investigation of the murder of Mr Augustus Edward BraithWaite at his home at. Ponsonby. and the robbery at the Ponsonby l.’ost Oflice, was developed on Saturday by a find made by a search party in a gully at the end of Somerset. Place Newton. The find consists of three small canvas bags containing about £25 in money, three revolvers, a quantity of ammunition, and two bunches of keys. Significance is given to the discovery by the fact that the keys include one that fits Mr Braithwai|te’s office, one of the strongroom of the robbed post ofiice, and another that fits the front door of Mr Braithwa.'i'te’s trcsidenlce, a;ndJ Cm this respect the two bunches of keys correspond with two bunches which had been customarily carried by -‘the postmaster and had not been found on him after the crime. Still further connection between the find and the “robber-y is expect.ed'to be established 3 by a cancelled postal note included in ithe money, and by the fact Ithat the ; bullets of the ammunition were of the lsame calibre as the bullets found in Mr Braithwaite"s body. . LOCALITY OF THE “PLANT.” The locality of the find is one of -several curiously out~of-theway spots which have grown up in. Auckland by the gradual‘ building in of gullies, parodoxically remote, yet not far from the maddening crowd. It. is so close to the busy thoroughfare known as Karangahape Road that if it were not for the intervening business and other buildings a. boy could easily throw 2 stone from the spot. of the actual find among the pedestrians in K:1-."1!128.-hape Road. On the city side of that street, between Pitt Street co"nev and ‘the Howe Street corner. the land fall: away steeply, and about half-way l’;(twecn the two points the Rising Sun Hotel fronts the street, hiding -4 gully that runs almost up to Karangahape Road. "A" ‘pedestrian taking way through a. small alley going from the main street beside the hotel. comes suddenly within 5. hundred yards, upon a fine panorama of part of the city and the harbour.’ To the left a blaze of houses, filling in ‘the south-eastern prospect of Ponsonby Road, with the clock-to\\'er of the Ponsonby Post. ofliee standing up in relief against the skylline; in front the blufi, obstrusive lloom of— the Beresford Street gasoimeter, with a background of houses islopiug down to the water beyond [Fr-eeman’s Bay; and llirectfly at the feet. of the onlooker a small deep ! gully, unbuilt upon, fringed round with back yards of (lVVolllllflS. three acres of no~nlan.’s land, covered with thick, strag»gli.:;; shrub growths. The gully opens out on to Beresford Street at the big gasometer, getting narrow and deeper as it runs, back towards Karangahape Road, i'fs bed and sides lbeing thickly covered with clumps of eleagnus. grown wild. self-sown bamiboo clumps. and blackberry patches. Winding about through it are a number of tracks made by residents of the vicinity taking short-cuts to their homes, and by children playing games in this wilderness. One of the intersecting short s-‘reefs which end at the edge of the gully is Somerset Place. where lived the young man Gunn, who was arrested on Wednesday. ' g HOW THE SEARCH WAS MADE.

This gully fell under suspicion as a hiding place of loot immediately after the arrest. and on Friday a search of it. was made without result. 011 Saturday a party of police consisting, of Constables Devereux (Ponsonby). I’. Sullivan (city), Lane (Newinarkef), Baker (Newton), W;2tl{il‘ls (k‘reenlan's Bay), and Waterman (Parnell), under the direction of Detective Young, took hooks and slashers, and started a systeinatie. search along the line of track leading from the end of Somerset Place across the gully. They had put. in a couple of hours’ work cut-‘Sing down the Slll‘llb>‘ and undergrowtli. and searclring the small trees, when they came to a. large patch of tangled blackberry, four or five yards back from the track. It was not until they reached the heart of the patch ‘lhat. they had success; then one of them struck with his hook what appeared to be a bit of old sack. As it was thrown down from the point of the Hook it jingled, and Detective Young picked it up to find that itC"was a long canvas bag containing a quantity of silver coin. In a few moments after two other canvas bags were uncovered, and in them were found the articles mentioned, while jeinni_v was fastened to one of them. Two of the bags were of the kind usually employed by business folks for carrying; money to the bank. while the third? was longer and slimmer. and if usedj as a casing for a piece of lead pipe, or!‘ filled wi"h sand. it would make what: is nopularly known as a criminalksll “sand-bag.” The place where the find a was made was barely a hundred yards! from the end of the street known as Somerset Place, and the manner $215 which the bags were concealed seenr toi

indicate that they had been weighted

with the jemmy and thrown into Hl6 bla.Ckb9l'l‘y I_)‘.ltC]l Sonleonp Sqanding on the track.