Theories
Up to this point it had been taken for granted that Barclay had been killed by Bamford. Speculation now followed the line “that Bamford shot Barclay and afterwards Bamford was shot by some friend of the manager, in revenge, in the good old wild west manner.”
Police suspicion naturally fell on Harry Smith, but there was no direct evidence. In addition, he would have had to carry out a complex deception about the discovery of Barclay’s body, and he was present at the discovery of Bamford's. It is also unlikely he would have knowingly allowed the body of his friend Jim Barclay to lie where the murderer left it and be disturbed by animals for three weeks. He was not charged. Writing in 1980, Harry Stephenson seems to favour the theory that Smith “might have had an answer to the mystery” and noted that older cattlemen were still reluctant to discuss the case.
A second theory was that the two men had been victims of stock thieves. Wallace Mortimer suggests Barclay and later Bamford were perhaps killed by horse thieves, and cites “old timers are adamant in their belief such was the reason.” The Police report refutes this, pointing out that the only stock missing from Wonnangatta was Bamfords horse that had been recovered on Mount Howitt.
Wallace Mortimer dismissed any significance of the right shoe and a hat found placed near the crotch of Barclay's body. According to Mortimer, the idea that this implied a motive for the killing (Barclay, a ladies man, killed by a jealous husband) came from a novelist, "who had obviously done little or no research into the matter."
Read more about this topic: Wonnangatta Murders
Famous quotes containing the word theories:
“Generalisation is necessary to the advancement of knowledge; but particularly is indispensable to the creations of the imagination. In proportion as men know more and think more they look less at individuals and more at classes. They therefore make better theories and worse poems.”
—Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–1859)
“It takes twenty or so years before a mother can know with any certainty how effective her theories have been—and even then there are surprises. The daily newspapers raise the most frightening questions of all for a mother of sons: Could my once sweet babes ever become violent men? Are my sons really who I think they are?”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“The real trouble about women is that they must always go on trying to adapt themselves to men’s theories of women, as they always have done. When a woman is thoroughly herself, she is being what her type of man wants her to be. When a woman is hysterical it’s because she doesn’t quite know what to be, which pattern to follow, which man’s picture of woman to live up to.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)