The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1910-07-26
SUSPECTS 70 GET
THE THIRD DECREE
Mystery Of Plantation Murder Is
UnsOlved-0plum May Be
at Bottom.


The mystery surrounding the murder
Tuesday night of Chun Ton, Chinese
laborer at the plantation Of the See
Tai Wal Rice Company, Kahuku, and
the attempted cremation Of his body by
saturating it with infiammables, is as
deep as ever. Chief Of Detectives Arthur
McDuffie will apply the "third degree"
this morning to Sing Moon, Ling Kee,
Lung Son, All Lai and All Mon, FIVE
celestials arrested Thursday afternoon
and brought to the city yesterday morn,
ing by officer Apana and deputy sher-
i'll from the Kahul1u district.
The five men were taken into custody
pending thorough investigation of the
circumstances surrounding the murder,
and every effort will be made to get
from them all the information they
know. They refused yesterday to talk,
but MeDuffie hopes to induce one or all
of them to tell true story before
they are turned loose.
There is more than one horn to the
dilemma. Yet there are not enough
links of the same sort to be welded
into a chain of strong circumstantial
evidence. 1t was ascertained that Chun
Ton was an opium fend, and there is
possibility that he had supply of
the drug on hand and was murdered
for it. At the present time opium is
worth about eighty dollars pound,
and if Chun Ton had large supply on
hand he might have been killed for it.
But that theory has not been sifted
thoroughly and as yet no one can tell
what the developments along that line
will be.
Chun Ton was employed with eleven
other men, three of whom were lodging
in the same house with him. The other
three belonged to tong of which he
was not a member, but if there was
feud between them nobody has been
able to find it out.
Ling Moon, the Chinese who sold Ton
his meals, got up the morning after
the murder and went to Ton IS lodgings
and inquired for him. He has meyer
done the like before. Moon entered
the house and looked in Ton 3 bed for
him, and upon failing to find him walk
ed almost directly to the bushy tree
under which the charred body was hid.
den. Moon Is actions led the authori-
ties to suspect that if he knew SO well
where to look for the dead body when
he did not even know Ton had been
killed he must have known enough be-
forehand to lead him to fear the man
had been murdered, or he himself had
some connection with the crime and
wanted to feign ignorance in order to
prevent the officers from linking his
name with the homicide.
To McDuffie and others familiar with
the evidence already adduced it APP
pears almost impossible for the murder
to have been committed right there
at the house when three associates of
Ton were sleeping within his reach.
If Ton was dragged out of bed and
stabbed to death, the cook and the
other two men in the house must have
known it. If Ton got up at late
hour and went outside without waking
them and was murdered near the door,
he must have made noise enough to
rouse them from their slumbers.
The most perplexing difficulty with
which the officers are confronted is the
Chinese's refusal to tell what they
know of the tragedy. They were all
there on the plantation alone, and if
they persist in their silence it will be
almost impossible to procure the evil
dence necessary for a conviction.
If Ton IS associates are innocent of
the crime, then MeDufie and his assist.
ants win have the seemingly impossible
task of finding some one else who, ap,
parently. did not leave any tracks be-
bind when he fed from the scene of
his fiendish work.
It win require the work of a Sher-
lock Holmes or Monsieur Dupin to un-
ravcl the mystery unless the men al
ready in custody either confess or inn
plicate someone else. If the scene of
the tragedy were nearer the city it
would be less difficult for the detective
force to carry on the investigation.