Rabaul Has

Naval Rating Shot

Murder Nerves

so-far undetected mur

derer of Carol Wright and

Daniel Ng in Rabaul on January

12 (PINE Jan., p. 24) was re sponsible for the death of a sea man from HMS Wagga in Rabaul on January 20.

This appears to have been the finding of Rabaul coroner, Mr. F. J.

Winkle, who, on January 21, de clared that Rabaul radiograper, Louis James Sweeney, had acted m a reasonable manner and in self defence when he shot dead Reginald David Montgomerie, a Naval rating, who had apparently broken into Sweeney’s house.

Mr. Winkle returned a verdict of justifiable homicide and said that since the double murder on Jan uary 12, there had been great nervous tension in Rabaul.

Sweeney said, in evidence, that since the double-murder he had kept a loaded revolver near his bedside. When he heard noises in his house in the early hours of the morning he picked up the revolver and opened the bedroom door. He saw a dark shape and the glint of light on what he took to be a knife.

He fired the revolver a number of times and when he later turned on the lights he saw the body of a Naval rating lying on the floor.

Police evidence showed that Montgomerie had had a carving knife that he had taken from Sweeney’s house and was carrying a travelling clock, the base of a flat-iron, a whisky measure and a butter-knife. A large piece of rock was in one of his pockets.

Another Naval rating from 'Wagga said that Montgomerie had returned to his ship about midnight after having spent the night drink ing beer in hotels and clubs ashore.

He immediately wanted to leave ship again to look for another party.

The rating did not see him again.

Montgomerie’s family, which lives in Sydney, said that the inquest had been held too soon after the shooting (the following day) and that they should have been given time to have him represented. It was said that he was not a heavy drinker and not the type to try to kill anyone; his Navy friends de scribed him as a “good bloke.”

Montgomerie was to have been married on his return to Sydney.

A Navy officer said at the inquest that Montgomerie did not have a criminal record.

No Arrest In Double

Murder

So far little headway has been made in apprehending the murderer of Carol Wright and Daniel Ng, although the biggest man-hunt ever staged in New Britain has been carried out by the Police, under Superintendent A. Rackemann, assisted by the Administration and local Native Village Councils.

Many miles of country in the vicinity of where the couple were killed apparently by being at tacked with a knife from behind while they rested beneath a tree— have been combed yard by yard for clues, and more than 1,000 persons have been questioned. Outgoing planes and ships have been checked.

The bodies were found by a former native policeman and a native “wearing a blue shirt and a dirty lap-lap” was seen in the area about the time the crime was committed. Police are anxious to interview this native but he has not come forward.

Wild rumours that circulated in Rabaul have helped to intensify local jitters. One of the rumours concerned Frederick Phillip Smith, outcome of whose appeal to the Australian High Court against his conviction of murdering a couple

on Rabaul golf links list May, was then pending. The four Judges who heard the appeal in Sydney in December delivered their verdict on January 21 and upheld Smith s appeal. (See elsewhere).

However, the verdict was based on points of law and any apparent connection with subsequent Rabaul events was purely coincidental.