Advertiser (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - 1931), Monday 4 April 1898, page 5


VICTORIA.

DEATH OF A FARM LABORER. A MYSTERY CLEARED UP. Melbourne, April 3.

Stephen Ewing, a farm laborer, who lived near Mount Hope, disappeared in a mysterious manner some time ago, and on Saturday his remains were -found by the children of a

school picnic. The body was in a crevice of a granite rock in a dreadfully mutilated condition. A farmer, on whose land the deceased was harvesting, stated at an enquiry yesterday, that the man was missed from a field in December, and search parties scoured the district for three or four days. He was not aware that there was anything mentally wrong about the deceased, nut a doctor had told him that he had made strange statements as to a suicide at Mount Hope. The body was noticed to be lying at the foot of a boulder 100 ft. high, and be must have fallen 70 ft. Several bones were broken, and decomposition was advanced. Two pounds was in bis pockets. A verdict was returned that death was due to a fall, but there was no evidence to show whether it was accidental or otherwise.