Murder Hunt

A Papuan from the rugged Goilala area, Peter Evoro, 28, was charged in Port Moresby on January 25 with the murder of two Australian men and a Papuan girl, and with the attempted murder of an Australian woman.

His arrest ended the most intensive manhunt in Papua’s civil history.

Three hundred armed military and 200 police (see photo) searched scrub country just outside of the Port Moresby town limits for the murder weapons and for the murderer. They recovered a rifle hidden inside bamboo. Canberra had put tremendous pressure on the police to find the killer at all costs, for it feared that skilled Australians and their families might have second thoughts about going to Port Moresby while there was a gunman searching for victims.

The lawlessness started on Sunday, December 20, when a New Guinea man shot Mrs. Judith Thompson, an Australian, with the Thompson’s own .22 rifle, stolen the previous week. Then on Sunday, January 10, Paul Quinn, 25, of Sydney, walked through the door of his house and was shot dead. Police believe the attacker then made his way to Bomana, two miles away, where he shot and stabbed Dale Wayne Wilson, 27, and then pursued a Papuan girl and stabbed her to death.

The charged man was remanded to appear again in court on February 8.

One result of the killings is that the police will make new efforts to get Europeans to give up firearms they have hidden in their homes.

Photo: New Guinea News Service