LONDON FLAT MURDER.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 April 1922, Page 10

LONDON FLAT MURDER.

AIRMAN ON TRIAL. VICTIM’S INTUITION. London, March. 10. Debonair and calm, and making copious notes of the evidence, Ronald True, the former Royal Flying Corps officer who wm arrested, unknown to the audience, in a Hammersmith music hall, listened to the witnesses at the inquest into the death of Gertrude Yates, the pretty young woman who was found with her throat cut in the bathroom of ■her fashionable flat at Fulham. True is charged with the murder and with the theft of jewellery worth £2OO belonging to the victim. He heard unmoved the dramatic statement of a maid that he was the man who left the flat on the morning of the murder. The maid stated that Gertrude Yates lived alone in the flat, and was often visited by men, some of whom would stay all night. True had been there before. On the morning of the tragedy, she continued, he came from the direction of the bedroom, saying, “Don’t disturb her—she’s asleep.” The witness helped him to put on his overcoat and scarf, which she identified as those produced in the Court. She then went to the bedroom and found one side of the bed covered with blood, and a trail of blood leading to the bathroom. There Yates was lying, naked, except for a pyjama coat. Her head was battered in, and she was gagged, with a cord tied tightly round her throat. Doris Kent stated in evidence that she had known Yates for two years. She met her in Piccadilly on the night of the murder, when Yates told her that she was afraid of True, and afraid to go home. The cass was adjourned.