Greasies left clue in killing
Open verdict in fatal attack on chemist but fish and chip wrapper points to bank robber
A fish and chip wrapper used by a bank robber was a key piece of evidence in the hunt for the murderer of elderly Auckland pharmacist Arthur James Blomfield.
Blomfield, 75, was fatally bashed at Mackay’s Dispensary in Wellesley St near Queen St just after 5pm on Friday, October 30, 1931.
A customer walked in moments later, rang the bell, and watched as a man came around the dispensing table, who said, “He will be here any minute”, and walked quickly out of the shop.
After a few minutes, a shop assistant who had been out returned and went into the back room where he found Blomfield lying injured and bleeding on the floor. The till was on the floor and around £6 (about $650 today) was missing.
Blomfield had 16 wounds on his head and died in Auckland Hospital several hours later from brain injuries. The blunt weapon with which the injuries were inflicted wasn’t found.
Enter Oswald Coulton, an unemployed 24-year-old Australian, and Fred Youngs, the sole teller at the Bank of New Zealand Remuera branch, who carried a gun.
Coulton, a former Papakura farm worker, was a frustrated writer, a lover of mystery stories and aviation, a convicted forger, the son of wealthy Australians.
Twenty-five days after the attack on Blomfield, Coulton was shot dead while trying to hold up Youngs’ bank.
Coulton’s ruse had been to ask Youngs to read a document.
“I commenced to read the letter and had only read about two lines,” Youngs told an inquest, “when he stepped back and glared at me and raised his arm.
“He had something like a piece of canvas in his hand and he struck me on the head with this, inflicting an injury to the top portion of my head.” The canvas concealed a fire brush. “I reeled backward against the wall,” Youngs continued. “The deceased stepped back and shut the front door. I had a loaded revolver in my right-hand coat pocket. When deceased rushed across from the front door to the counter I pulled the revolver out and pointed it at him.”
Coulton crouched to hide at the front of the counter. Youngs, dazed from the blow to his head, lifted the counter flap and fired. Coulton bolted out the door. Youngs told him to stop but Coulton kept running.
Youngs fired again and told the inquest: “I saw deceased stumble at the corner of the building and fall on to his face on the footpath.”
Shot through the back and heart, Coulton died outside a Remuera Rd bakery.
Youngs was summonsed for manslaughter as a formality but the charge was dismissed. At the inquest, Coroner F.K. Hunt told Youngs: “I think you have the sympathy of the general public. You are discharged.”
Police found a car jack handle — which could have been the murder weapon in the Blomfield case — at Coulton’s Grafton apartment. A revolver and Bowie knife were found at another place he had stayed.
“In the opinion of at least one police officer,” the Herald wrote in the days after Coulton’s death, “there is no doubt that Lawrence Oswald Coulton was connected in some way with the murder of Mr Arthur James Blomfield.”
A fish and chip wrapper was found in the pharmacy. Police showed Coulton’s body to the woman who owned the fish shop, and the customer in the chemist’s at the time. They could not confirm an identification but when shown a photograph that police obtained from Australia the woman was more certain.
“The woman was positive that the parcel of fish and chips found in the pharmacy was purchased from her shop,” the Herald reported, adding that she stated definitely that the Australian photo of Coulton was identical to the man in her shop.
Coulton had a criminal record across the Tasman and had been in prison after being convicted for forging a farmer’s signature on cheques.
The Herald asserted in January 1932 that the fish and chip wrapper and the confirmed sighting of Coulton was “the most definite evidence so far obtained” of his connection to the Blomfield murder. At Blomfield’s inquest the lawyer for his parents said: “I understand it is going to be put forward by the police that Coulton was the murderer.”
Coroner W.R. McKean replied: “You apparently understand wrongly.”
McKean issued an open verdict. The evidence did not reveal the identity of the killer.