DOUBLE MURDER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 August 1942, Page 3

DOUBLE MURDER

BODIES OF TWO WOMEN FOUND IN WAIROA. STRONG FORCE OF POLICE INVESTIGATING. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) NAPIER, This Day. An apparent double murder was discovered in Wairoa last night when rhe bodies' of Brigadier Smyth (Salvation Army) and her sister, Miss Rosamond Smyth, were found in a house in Queen Street, Wairoa, with their heads battered in with an iron poker. The Commissioner of Police (Mr D. J. Cummings) arrived by plane this morning and left immediately for Wairoa, accompanied by police photographers, finger print experts and all available members of the detective force in Napier and Hastings. An inspector of police was already at the scene. The dead people had not been seen since August 13, but the windows were all open and lights had been burning' day and night. A Wairoa Press Association message states that concern having been expressed regarding the non-appearance of the occupants, the police last night visited the local I Salvation Army Hall, which is also used as living quarters by the officer in charge. On gaining entry, Constable King found, in’‘the sitting, room, the bodies of Brigadier Annie Smyth and her sister, Rosamond Smyth. The bodies showed signs of severe battering and a weapon was found nearby. Sergeant Moore communicated with Napier and early this morning a party of detectives arrived in charge of Detective-Sergeant Revell and immediately commenced investigations. Other officers are expected this morning and full inquiries are being made. Brigadier Smyth was on furlough when the war broke out and returned to her station in Japan, where she had exciting experiences, being detained for several days for questioning by the authorities before being released. She then came to New Zealand and was appointed to take charge in Wairoa. Chief-Detective Young, of Wellington, left by plane to take charge of the investigation, a Wellington Press Association message reports. He is accompanied by Dr. P. P. Lynch, pathologist, and Senior-Sergeant Dinnie, fin-ger-print and photography expert at Police Headquarters. > Commissioner Evan Smith, of the Salvation Army, accompanied a police party which is travelling by car and train. Brigadier Annie Smyth, who is aged about sixty, and her sister were both born in Wellington. Thd brigadier was educated at the Wellington Girls’ College and took an Arts Degree of the New Zealand University in preparation, for a. teaching career, but instead undertook missionary work for the Salvation Army in Japan, where she went in 1906, becoming one of its best-known Christian missionaries. At the lime of her return to New Zealand, at the end of 1940, she was described as one of the most picturesque figures in Tokio. She told interviewers here that she intended returning to Japan after the war. She was given charge of the Wairoa Corps of the Salvation Army and was assisted by her sister, who until that time had spent all her life in Wellington. They have a sister in Wellington, Mrs W. J. Fraser, of Highland Park, and their brother is Collector of Customs at Invercargill.