Sandilands Murder Part II: Wilful Murder

Sandilands Murder Part II: Wilful Murder

Thirteen-year-old Gladys Bockmann was the first witness in the trial against Herbert Cyril Curnow for the murder of Eleanor Louise Bockmann. Gladys stated to the court, that on Friday the 8th of September the family sat down to lunch together, with Curnow present as he had been staying with the family during the local football finals, as he was on the same team as her brother Lawrence.

 After lunch, Curnow and Lawrence had gone outside to kick a football. He came back inside around twenty minutes later, and laid on the bed in her brother's room and read a book. At about 2:30pm, Curnow went outside to get a drink of water. He had come back inside with a gun.

Gladys claimed that Eleanor said to them “let’s go up into the bedroom, he might shoot us!”. Gladys and Eleanor got up and went into their bedroom.
 Curnow went outside again, and as he did Alvera called out to her cousins that he had left the house. Eleanor went out to the veranda took the gun, came back inside and hid the gun in the house.
Curnow returned not long after and asked where the gun had gone. Gladys told Curnow she didn’t know where the gun was and called out to Eleanor to get it. Eleanor took the gun outside once again.
 The girls gathered once again in the dining room, thinking that Curnow had gone down to the horse stables.

Gladys then stated that she was sitting in the dining room with her sister Eleanor, and cousin Alvera darning socks.

Shortly after, Curnow returned, went into the boy's room for a few minutes, and then came into the dining room. He had his hat and coat on and the gun in his hand. The girls, sitting around the sewing machine, watched in shock as, without a word, Curnow levelled the gun at them.
Alvera called out “Auntie!” and Curnow turned the gun toward Gladys, next he turned it toward Eleanor.

 Eleanor said “Don’t shoot me, Cyril!”, without saying a word, he pulled the trigger and then ran outside.

Eleanor fell to the ground, she had been shot through the left side of her neck. Her head fell forward, and then her hands came up and grabbed her neck. She ran outside.

Gladys ran outside to find her father and brother in a nearby paddock and screamed at them that Lorna (Eleanor) had been shot. They all jumped on their horse and cart and rushed back to the house.
 Eleanor, now laying near the water tank of the house, died in her father's arms…

The back view of a house at Sandilands near Maitland, Yorke Peninsula, where 17-year-old Eleanor Louise Bockmann was murdered on 8 September 1922 by Herbert Cyril Curnow. The Observer newspaper reported "The home of the Bockmann's. The girl ran from the house and fell close to the galvanised-iron tank where she died in the arms of her father." SLSA: [PRG 280/1/32/167]

Next Week: Sandilands Murder Part III: “If I Had a Gun, I’d Shoot You, Then Myself!”

Researched and written by Allen Tiller © 2019

References in the final post.