ALLEGED MURDER.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1349, 4 June 1885, Page 1

ALLEGED MURDER.

On the arrival of the San Francisco Mail Steamer at Auckland ;ast month, one of the passengers was arrested for a murder committed in St. Louis. The accused stronu ously asserted his innocence, but notwithstanding this he has since then been held a prisoner pending arrival of extradition papers. The following particulars in reference to the murder were brought !)/ the Mail Steamer, which arrived at Auckland last Monday :—The body of an Fngli h gentleman, registered as 0. Arthur Preller, London, England, was found in a truck in a St. Louis hotel, on the 13th April, When the trunk was opened, the' body of a middleaged man was disclosed, face and breast u :>, and the body so doubled about the hips and knees that it filled <b* receptacle. On the side of the trunk,[over the head of the corpse, were printed in large letters the words —*• So perish all traitor* to the great cause.’' The body presented a horrible aspect, and was in an advanced stage of decomposition. < The 1 perfcobal offsets la the murdered man’s trunk indicate that the owner was a gentleman of means and culture. His room-mate, Walter Leon >z M'axwell, who is accused, of the murder, is also &a Englishman, and one of a family of Maxwells residing; on an estate ah Drummel, in England. He has disappeared, and the onl v clue the detectives have is that he left San Francisco di-gnisedpn the ete-imer City of Sydney, He is described us a ' very girli'sh-lddkmg blonde young man, face cleanly «h‘uTed, with his light sandy hair braided and no p .rting hI all. His eyes are light 1 'Blue; ho’is very effeminate in his mamier, carrying 1 his so lar as to -walk with a short tnnei hse a woman. ■ A cable message was s n to Auckland for his aporehe ision if he was a pa-senger on the City of Sydney.; Notwithstanding that the officers are following ihli clue, there is after all some uoubt to their being on the right track. The n me under which Maxwell took his passage on the steamer w«s Dangner. ' The wh ; le o.ae is involved - in obtoa>ity. Prellir, the murdered man, was a member of an English scot caked Plymouth Brethren; and of a slr i g rebgious lemneraraent; Latest 1 'telegram* l state that Maxwell has been arrested,:and..tbe:neceseary papers for his extradition will be forwarded by the 8,8. Aue’ralia.