ELUSIVE MURDERER.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 September 1921, Page 6

ELUSIVE MURDERER.

THE TIMARU TRAGEDY, DIFFICULTIES OF POLIC’D. THE MOTOR-CYCLE INCIDENT. Timaru, Sept. 23. Day and night over a period of four weeks the. detectives have been searching for a clue that would lead them to the murderer oi Constable James Dorgan. Their efforts so far have been almost fruitless. When Dorgan was fatally shot at Timaru on the morning of Saturday, August 27, his beat companion, Constable Christopher, was returning hurriedly after warning the owner, of the shop. While not far from the front door he heard four shots fired in quick succession. Then he ran, but the mur--1 derer had gone. The only person in the i rubbish-strewn backyard was Constable I Dorgan dying. He could give no description of his assailant. Constable Christopher never saw him though it was full moon. Footprints in the backyard gave no clues. Broken boxes, bundles of' rags and paper, all the jumbled debris that gathers behind a draper’s shop, operated against the search for a, distinguishing mark. In the shop .there were signs at first that the police might pick up the clue they wanted, i Gradually these hopes died away. The murderer certainly left behind him two bags packed with collars, socks, shirts, and a suit carefully selected to fit a man about sft. 6in., but by itself that fact led nowhere. There were no brands on the bags. Fingerprints, however, were everywhere—there were too many of them. Friday evening had been a. late night. Thompson’s shop had been crowded with a busy stream of customers, and at closing time little attempt had been made to clear up the shelves or counters. All this brought the investigation to centre round the calibre of the revolver that fired the shot. At the post-mortem examination the bullet was extracted from the dead man’s right chest and handed to the detectives. It afforded a very slender clue. The revolver used was of common make. It might have belonged to the murderer for years. It might have been rifled in a previous burglary. It might have been bought in a second hand shop. In any case, it was not left at the scene of the murder, and no one has come forward to throw any light on the identity of its owner.

Baffled in these directions, the detectives turned their attention to one peculiar circumstance. While the ambulance was waiting outside Thompson's shop, having been summoned by telephone, they distinctly heard a noise like a revolver shot coming from further up Stafford Street, nearer Caroline Bay. Was it possible that the murderer had fired at someone else, or else that his revolver had gone off as he threw it over a fence? As stated briefly in a telegram yesterday, investigation by Detective Bickerdike, of Christchurch, shows that the noise was very likely caused by a motor-cycle back-firing. That brings another mysterious fact into the crime. Somewhere between 1 a.m. and 2 a.m. on the Saturday morning, a motor-cycle with two men, cither started from or passed through Timaru, going on to Temuka, Geraldine, Arundel, Ashburton, Chertsey and Dunsandel. Do these-men know anything of the murder? The police are anxious to know who they were, and what their business was. Here again the investigation of the Timaru murder strikes a blank wall.