Charles Spring died at Mudgee hospital just before midnight on Friday, August 27 1938. He was 72, and had been in failing health for some time. Mr Spring had requested that he be cremated at Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney. Next day his grieving widow Georgina boarded the 7.50pm mail train from Mudgee to Sydney to make the necessary arrangements. In her handbag was the cash required for her husband’s cremation and funeral service. She was travelling alone in the First Class, ladies compartment.
Overnight the train made its way from Mudgee down through the Blue Mountains. Just after leaving the village of Lawson at about 2.45am, an inspector entered Mrs Spring’s carriage. asking to see her ticket, which she produced. He then approached a man sitting in a nearby ladies compartment, checked his ticket and asked the passenger to move away from the ladies’ section.
A few minutes later the inspector returned, to Mrs Spring. She was suspicious, of him, because he was not wearing a railway uniform or displaying a badge. He told her he was not required to wear a uniform at night. When he sat down, and lit a cigarette she remonstrated with him and told him she didn’t believe he was a railway official at all.
Suddenly the man leapt up, turned off the light and attacked the 69 year old widow with a glass water bottle and then a heavy tumbler, beating her over the head. When she managed to hit him in the face he tried to choke her. Fortunately, before she collapsed unconscious her screams were heard by another passenger, who summoned a guard.
The train made an emergency stop at Springwood, where police and an ambulance were called. Mrs Spring was rushed to hospital in Penrith with a fractured skull, a broken nose and a ruptured eye. Meanwhile her assailant had jumped off the train and disappeared.
There was a widespread search for the man and the following description issued;
A constable from Lithgow was sure he knew the identity of the perpetrator from the description given and by Sunday night a local man was under arrest.
His name was William McKeown a Scottish born, 23 year old miner from Lithgow. He was married with a young baby. Convicted of theft at Lithgow earlier in the year he had been released from gaol only days before the attack. Police were convinced that he had intended to rob Mrs Spring, but that her screams over the brutal attack had attracted attention before he could seize her handbag,
Against all the odds, Georgina Spring made a good recovery. Doctors were able to save her eye and she was able to testify when the case came to trial.
The young man’s defense was that he suffered from epilepsy and couldn’t remember much of what had happened. However, it was clear he had planned the attack, assuming the role of ticket inspector on the Mudgee train and ensuring that a nearby male passenger was well away from the scene. Alternatively, he suggested that he may have just pushed Mrs Spring, causing her to fall and hit her head on a metal foot warmer.
McKeown’s fate was sealed when Dr. Holloway. a visiting surgeon at Long Bay, was called by the prosecution. He said that he had been observing the defendant for three weeks before the trial and had seen no sign of epilepsy. More to the point, he said McKeown, ‘…made no report to me of having suffered from epilepsy.’ Doctors at Lithgow had been interviewed during the police investigation and none had treated McKeown for epilepsy.
Not surprisingly the defendant was found guilty and given a hefty sentence; 15 years with hard labour to be served in Goulburn gaol. A sub-editor came up with the perfect headline in Mildura’s Sunrasia Daily (Nov. 11 1938);
There was another victim in this horrible affair, McKeown’s wife Pauline. She was the only daughter of a respectable Lithgow couple.
Within months of the marriage McKeown had sold the couple’s kitchen tea and wedding gifts and left. His wife and baby boy would later return to live with her parents. It was three years before Pauline could apply for a divorce. I so hope she found happiness in life.
CLICK HERE TO READ AN ACCOUNT OF THE WEDDING OF PAULINE TO WILLIAM MCKEOWN. IT BEGAN WITH SUCH JOY AND HAPPINESS FOR HER FAMILY.
