A SHOCKING TRAGEDY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8994, 3 December 1907, Page 5

A SHOCKING TRAGEDY.

A WOMAN MURDERED. BURIED IN A KITCHEN. .CONFESSION OF THE MURDERER. Received December 2, 9.15 a.m. PERTH, December 2. A allocking tragedy, perpetrated a week ago, has been brought to light. The victim was a woman named Clark, who had been living with a gardener named Moore at Belmont Park. Moore has confessed his crime. The manner in which he had disposed of the body by burying it six feet deep in the kitchen was so complete (hat but for his subsequent actions the crime might never have been sheeted home to him. \ The-couple ouarrelled frequently, and the story told by Moore to the neighbours was that the woman had cleared out. On- the night of the murder the woman was heard to cry out, "Oh, Jack ! Oh, Jack!" The neighbours subsequently had their suspicions aroused, and informed the police. The latter while examining the kitchen prodded the soft earth of the floor with a stick which Moore had sharpened for them for the purpose. Moore accounted for boxes of women's apparel in the room by stating that they had been left by his previous housekeeper, Mrs Pearson, whose whereabouts will also be investigated. The search with the pointed stick revealed nothing, because it was only three feet long. On a second visit by Inspector Connel! he found Moore restive, and unable to sleep, his stretcher being over the soft earth floor, on the spot where the body was subsequently found. When confronted by the inspector, Moore confessed to the murder. He said: "We had a row. I was sitting on a box reading a paper when she came in and said 'Goodbye.' A few seconds afterwards she came back into the room with an axe which had been hidden for some time previously, and made a swipe at me. I ducked, missed the blow, and then jumped up and punched her. Then 1 grabbed her by the throat and strangled her, and there she is. She is down there" (pointing to the floor). He then burned her boots and clothing, and buried the body with lime. The body has been exhumed.