THE SEVERED HEAD.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2149, 13 January 1891, Page 3

THE SEVERED HEAD.

The Press says :—This case has now received a further development, the arrest of Constable Flanagan and his wife having been followed by the or rest of their daughter. It is stated that about >hree weeks ago, or a little more, she was confined of a male child, which was given out to nurse to a woman in Hereford street. Last Monday evening, the day before the information about the head was given, the mother of the child, with her own mother, visited the nurse, and received the child after having paid the necessary sum for its board. They after this went away, and nothing is known of what happened except from their own information. Observing the first paragraph of the discovery they went again to the nurse, and asked ir she had received a visit from the police, and on her replying “ Ho,” they told her to keep quiet and say nothing of what they had to inform her. They then proceeded, it is alleged, to tell her that after leaving her house —it was then dusk—they were met by three men, who rushed on them, in Gloucester street. One had a rope, with which the women were tied, and the child was taken away from them. They went home and informed Mr Flanagan of what bad happened, and last night Miss Flanagan werit to Wellington, her mother seeing the boat off. The nurse identified the baby’s clothing, which was found in different gardens, as that she supplied to the women when they came and took away the child. The accused Daniel Flanagan is about sixty-eight years of age, and has been twenty-five years in the New Zealand police force, thirteen of which were spent on the West Coast. He came to Christchurch in 1879, and has been the greater part of the time since at Addington. He is a quiet and inoffensive man, and said to be fond of his wife and family, of whom there are two sons and one daughter. Mrs Flanagan is a short, stout, and strongly built woman, advanced in years, with a bard and firm expression of countenance. Sarah Jane Flanagan, their daughter, is upwards of thirty years of age, and was a music teacher by profession.

Sarah Jane Flanagan has been arrested in Wellington. She was going under the name of Miss Cullen and had taken her passage for Sydney. She at first denied that she was Sarah Jane Flanagan, but subsequently admitted it, and told the story about the men rushing her mother and herself on Satarday last. Her father and mother were before the Christchurch Police Court on Saturday, and Mr Pender said he had sufficient evidence to connect both of them with it. The case was remanded. It is exciting great interest in Christchurch.

Miss Flanagan appeared at the police court, Wellington, yesterday morning and was remanded to Christchurch for Wednesday.