Townsville Daily Bulletin (Qld. : 1907 - 1954), Thursday 29 April 1954, page 2


Murder Hunt At Stratford-on-Avon

LONDON, April 28.— People queueing for the first night of "Romeo and Juliet" at Stratford-on-Avon saw murder-hunt detectives pull a 20lb. moss-covered grave-stone from the Avon. The small tombstone be-

came a vital clue as detec-tives probed the death of a woman, drowned in the river near Shakespeare's burial place. The police hauled the tombstone from the river bed near the spot where a woman found it missing from its usual place in Holy Trinity churchyard, at the river's edge. The police say that the tombstone may have been tied to the body of a 45-years-old Scottish midwife, Nurse Olive Bennett. A full-scale murder hunt is taking place in the quaint old town where literary lovers are gathered for the annual Shakespearian cele-brations. Detectives have not ruled out accidental death but they want to know why Nurse Bennett complained to a

hotel owner recently that she was being followed. She left her maternity home, two miles from Strat-ford last Friday and her body was seen in the river on Saturday. Her hat was found on the tree-fringed towpath known as Lover's Lane, not far from the Memorial Theatre. Her bottom set of dentures, her spectacle case and a shoe were found scattered between moss-covered graves in the churchyard of Holy Trinity. The police have learned that Nurse Bennett was an inoffensive little soul and she was not known to have any men friends.