WESTRALIAN SENSATION

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 167, 24 October 1910, Page 5

WESTRALIAN SENSATION

SEARCHING FOR A WOMAN'S BODY. By Cable—Press Association— Copyright. Received 23, 5.5 p.m. Perth, October 22. The search for the body of Miss Harris continues. Detectives are satisfied that it could have been burnt at the foundry where Smart worked, and the traces destroyed. Smart pleaded guilty to the bigamy charge, and was remanded for sentence.

STORY OF THE DISAPPEARANCE. An estrordinary set of circumstances led to the arrest of Alfred William Smart, a carter, forty-one years of age. at Perth about a fortnight ago, on a charge of bigamy. Smart arrived in West Australia seven years ago, and made the acquaintance of a young woman named Ethel Harris, who shortly afterwards left Perth with her parents for Boulder. A few months later she returned to Perth, and lived with Smart as his wife, first at Leederville, and afterwards at Cowle-itreet, West Perth. Ihe case was brought under the notice of the detectives upon the receipt of a report that the young woman had mysteriously disappeared about March 7th, and that Smart married Mary -Tane Pemberthv a ■week later. He had been keeping company with this woman for nearly two vears, and Ethel Harris is said to have known this. • . Enquiries made by the detectives did not bear out Smart's statements. He said that Ethel Harris told him early in March that she was going to Victoria, and that on returning one afternoon from work he found that she had gone. But he was positive that she would return. The girl's father, who is now living at Leederville, questioned Smart about the girl's disappearance, and told the police that Smart said at first that she had gone to Victoria, and afterwards that she had gone to South Australia. He did not give any address. The detectives have obtained information that Ethel Harris was seen in the house several (lays liefore Smart's marriage with the waitress Pemberthv. Sergeant-Detective .Mann and plainclothes Constable Ebberson questioned Smart in regard to the disappearance of Ethel Hani-. who i< twcnt\ six years old and a native of llal'ai.tt. and this led to lii~ arrest for bi?amv. as it is alleged that In- admitted having a wife alive in Victoria. Having failed to trace any movements of the mi"itiL' u mail, the detectives took pos>o>«i<>n <•>' i l "' ho;i*e in which she was living with Smart, and which •Smart was occupying with hi* wife bv marriage last March. Further investi'jations. startin" with the digging lip of the vard, were to be made.