TRAGEDY AT PALMERSTON

Wairarapa Age, 20 March 1920, Page 3

TRAGEDY AT PALMERSTON

BODY OF WOMAN FOUND.

INDICATIONS OF BRUTAL MURDER. A SHOCKING OCCURRENCE. Indications point to a brutal murder having been committed in Palmerston North last night, says the Manawatu "Standard" of Thursday. Early this morning the body of a woman with her throat cut was iound lying by the fence where it is overhung with trees in an unformed street running between Ruahine street B.od Fitzroy street, about 250 yards from th 6 Ferguson street corner. A gentleman named Wellß, a resident of the vicinity, was passing through the street on the way to bring in a cow between six and seven o'clock when ho observed the tody. The police were communicated with and on their arrival immediately afterwards removed the corpse to the morgue. The body was then completely cold and the woman appeared to have Men dead for some hours. Investigations disclosed that the body was that of a married woman named Mary Ethelin Webby, aged 44 years, who resided with her husband, Felix Webby, who is A drayman in the employ of a local firm of contractors, at 42 Manson street. There ;s one child, a girl of about nine years of age. The face was covered with blood, but there were no marks on the body other than the fatal injuries to the throat. No instrument by which the deed oould have been performed was found, so that the inference drawn . by, the police is that the woman was foully murdered. . The scene of the tragedy is an unformed street running between Fitzroy and Ruahine streets, at the place where there is a dip in each thoroughfare. A number of big trees overhang the fence near the Fitzroy street intersection, at which there is a High bank with a drop of fully'ten feet to the unformed road. The locality is a quiet one, the nearest dwellings be'ng well over a chain away. .The road is only used as a quick means of entering from Ruahine to Fitzroy street, or j vice versa, so that a crime could be j easily committed and the criminal j leave the spot without exciting any I comment from people who might be! passing. TERRIBLE WOUNDS INFLICTED. Further enquiries made at the police station elicited the information from Senior-Sergeant Fraser that the wounds- inflicted were extraordinarily sever, the throat having been cut from ear to'ear. The senior-sergeant was of opinion that such a gash could 1 not have been inflicted with any other j instrument than a razor. I The police and detective staff are j pursuing full and'searching investigations, but so far no arrest baa been made.