DISMEMBERED BODY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 May 1938, Page 7

DISMEMBERED BODY

FOUND IN PICTON HARBOUR IN SUIT CASE PRESUMED IDENTIFICATION OF VICTIM. BELIEVED TO BE WELLINGTON MAN. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) BLENHEIM, May 8. Bearing three stab marks in the vicinty of the heart, the headless and legless body of an elderly slimly-built man was found packed in a fibre suitcase floating underneath the Picton wharf at about noon on Saturday. An unemployment levy book found in a coat pocket when the body was examined by detectives late in the afternoon bore the name of Edwin Armstrong, 20 Hinau Road, Hataitai, Wellington, who, according to information given the police from Wellington, was last seen at 8.30 o’clock on Friday morning, when his wife and two sons, the latter aged nineteen and twenty respectively, left for their work in the city. Nothing has yet been established in the police inquiries to fix the identity of the person responsible for what appears to be one of the most brutal and unusual murders in New Zealand crime history, but the early discovery of the body, together with apparent proofs of identification of the corpse contained in the pockets of the clothes have speedily opened up a well-defined field for investigation from which the police have every hope of obtaining early and important information. The body itself could not have been in the water for any lengthy period, probably not more than twelve hours. The opinion is also held that death took place within a fairly short period from the time of the discovery of the ghastly remains. THEORY OF THE CRIME.

Various factors go to suggest that the dead man met his fate in Wellington not long after he was last seen alive at his home, that the head and legs were removed in order that the trunk would fit the suitcase, and that the person disposing of the corpse caught the Tamahine, which sailed at 2.45 o’clock on Friday afternoon for Picton. The necessity of catching the ship presumably left no time to remove the clothing or clear the pockets or else this precaution to hide the identity of the body was considered unnecessary or was overlooked. Cast into the harbour during Friday night, the case apparently floated about unseen under the wharf until the rising tide about midday on Saturday carried it to where it was seen bumping against the stringer of a heavy wooden buffer structure surrounding the concrete wharf. (Continued on page 4.)